Trump open to Iran sanctions relief if ‘concrete progress’ on nuclear issues, White House official says

President Donald Trump is ready to ease sanctions on Iran and release frozen funds for “concrete progress” on a nuclear deal, a US official told CNN on Monday, as mediators try to bring the two countries back to the negotiating table.

The United States is having “positive and constructive discussions through the mediators,” the official said, while emphasizing that there will be no agreement until the nuclear issues are resolved. Trump on Saturday rejected Iran’s latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, calling it “unacceptable.”

On Sunday, Trump told Axios that he expects further negotiations with Iran to take place this week. The official said special envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were leading the negotiations from the U.S. side.

“They want to make a deal, but that’s not the deal I want to make,” the president said. “That’s what we might have agreed on a year ago. They overplayed their game.”

According to the official, Iran has indicated it is flexible on nuclear issues – but the two sides have not reached an agreement on the timetable for commitments.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that Trump rejected the proposal because he did not believe Iran was negotiating in good faith, arguing it was unacceptable for Tehran to “ask for everything up front.”

“Ultimately, they were asking for everything up front with the promise that then they would talk,” Waltz said on “State of the Union.”

Waltz later told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “it’s kind of common sense” that Trump doesn’t have much confidence in the Iranian proposal. He rejected Tehran’s latest offer, calling it “a fairly cynical attempt to put on the table something that they knew was unacceptable.”

The White House official reiterated Waltz’s assertion that the United States is skeptical of Iran’s promises, given that the country violated the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding reached in July by firing on commercial ships.