Why does Trump describe the Iranians as devious, and do the realities of war and negotiation support his accusation—or reveal that Washington has contributed to prolonging the crisis?

Prepared and analyzed by | Strategic Media Department – BETH News Agency
Supervised by: Abdullah Al-Omira

Washington – Tehran | BETH

U.S. President Donald Trump described Iranian negotiators as “very devious,” explaining that they sometimes agree to something during negotiations, then speak to the media and deny having agreed to it.

The original phrase Trump used was “devious negotiators,” which is closer in meaning to “evasive or underhanded negotiators” than to describing cunning as an inherent trait of the Iranian people.

But the statement was not incidental. It revived an older idea Trump expressed in January 2020, when he said:

“Iran never won a war, but never lost a negotiation.”

What has led the U.S. president to repeat this characterization? Do the facts support him, or is he using it to explain his difficulty in converting American superiority into a political outcome?

What Does Trump Mean?

Trump is not speaking about Iran’s ability to impose its conditions through military power, but about a negotiating method built on four elements:

• Giving approval through secret channels, then diluting or publicly denying it.
• Using time to diminish the effect of threats and increase the cost of continuing the war.
• Dividing negotiations into separate files, then reconnecting them at the appropriate moment.
• Redefining an agreement after progress has been made, so that technical approval does not necessarily mean acceptance of political implementation.

From Trump’s perspective, these methods allow Tehran to obtain de-escalation without making a final concession and lead Washington to announce that an agreement is near before it is truly ready.

Negotiations Publicly Denied

The clearest examples of contradiction emerged in March, when Trump said U.S. officials had held “good and productive” discussions with Iranian figures and that he had postponed a planned strike as a result.

Tehran, however, denied conducting negotiations with the United States and described the U.S. statements as untrue.

The scene was repeated in August. Trump announced that negotiations were underway and later spoke of talks that had lasted an entire day, while Iran insisted that no direct negotiations were taking place, although it acknowledged exchanging messages through intermediaries. Reuters

This reveals a deliberately maintained gray area: the Iranians regard messages and communications through intermediaries as an indirect exchange, while Trump presents them to his audience as ongoing negotiations.

This does not necessarily prove that either side is lying. It does, however, reveal a difference that serves both: Trump wants to show that his pressure forced Iran to negotiate, while Tehran wants to negotiate without admitting to its domestic audience that it came to the table under threat.

Agreement, Then Dispute

In June, the two sides reached a preliminary memorandum of understanding that included ending the war, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and lifting the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports, with negotiations over the nuclear file to begin later.

A dispute quickly emerged, however, over what Iran had actually agreed to.

Trump announced that Tehran had accepted the highest levels of nuclear inspection “indefinitely,” while Iran said the memorandum had not granted inspectors such open-ended authority and that the details of the nuclear file would be discussed later.

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency then announced that inspections would resume, but that the dates, locations, and procedures still required negotiation.

This supports part of Trump’s complaint, as Iran’s approval appeared open to multiple interpretations. At the same time, however, it reveals that the U.S. president presented the interim understanding to the public in terms broader than its text could bear.

Hormuz as an Example

Negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz provided the clearest example of the Iranian approach.

The formula initially circulated was limited: reopening the strait in exchange for lifting the blockade on Iranian ports.

Tehran then separated organizing the shipping lanes from reopening the strait. It advanced with Oman in defining one route for inbound vessels and another for outbound vessels, but emphasized that the technical agreement did not mean navigation would resume.

Iran subsequently tied implementation to lifting sanctions, releasing frozen funds, ending threats and military operations, obtaining compensation, and providing guarantees concerning Iran and its allies.

Tehran therefore agreed to chart the route, but retained the decision to permit its use as a separate negotiating card. 

This does not constitute a breach of a final agreement that was never signed, but it reveals a clear method of raising the price of approval whenever the other side draws closer to it.

Negotiating Under Denial

The Iranian leadership needs to achieve two seemingly contradictory outcomes:

To end pressure threatening the economy and the government, while avoiding the appearance at home that it has surrendered to the United States.

Tehran therefore relies on intermediaries, unsigned messages, conditional approvals, and language open to more than one interpretation.

This structure allows it to test the U.S. offer, obtain a temporary pause in strikes, and then tell its domestic audience that it neither entered direct negotiations nor made concessions under fire.

This is where Trump’s description originates: he is dealing with a party that does not give him approval he can easily announce, yet does not issue a definitive rejection that would allow him to justify military resolution.

Is Iran the Only Side Evading?

Neutrality requires acknowledging that U.S. conduct is not free of similar methods.

Trump repeatedly announced that an agreement was close, only for unresolved issues to emerge. He also claimed that the United States had reopened Hormuz and controlled it completely, while vessel traffic remained limited and shipping and insurance companies continued to treat it as a high-risk passage.

The U.S. president also shifted between demanding “complete surrender,” threatening devastating strikes, accepting a temporary pause, and then returning to negotiations with new demands for compensation.

In April, Trump stepped back from a severe threat and accepted a Pakistan-mediated truce only hours before a deadline he had set expired. This prompted U.S. analysts to argue that excessive threats had weakened the credibility of American pressure. Reuters

Iran, for its part, says the United States reimposed its naval blockade in July, constituting a breach of the June memorandum. Tehran therefore believes Washington is demanding that Iran fulfill obligations while failing to fulfill its own.

The crisis, then, is not between one candid party and another evasive one, but between two sides that use ambiguity, threats, and selective announcements to serve their respective positions.

If He Knows Them, Why Play Along?

The most pressing question is this: if Trump understands the Iranian negotiating method, why does he continue to play along? Why does he not confront them with a plan that deprives them of delay, denial, and changing conditions?

The first answer is that understanding an adversary’s method does not mean possessing a low-cost alternative.

The United States can carry out more severe strikes against Iran, but it ultimately needs a political outcome that restores navigation and establishes sustainable arrangements. Force can destroy targets, but it cannot, by itself, sign an agreement or guarantee its implementation.

The deeper answer is that Washington has not precisely determined what it wants from Iran. Does it seek only to reopen Hormuz? End the nuclear program? Restrict Iran’s missiles and proxies? Change the government’s conduct? Or overthrow it?

The broader the objectives become, the more difficult an agreement becomes, giving Iran greater room to divide the issues and bargain over each one separately.

Trump also understands that a major military shock could open a phase whose outcome would be difficult to control, placing pressure on energy markets, U.S. allies, and the American economy. He therefore threatens a strike to strengthen his negotiating position, then gives negotiations more time to avoid carrying out the threat with all its consequences.

There is another psychological and political reason. Trump sees himself as a negotiator capable of subduing the most difficult adversaries. He may therefore interpret every Iranian message as the beginning of a retreat and announce prematurely that an agreement is near, only to discover that Tehran was testing his conditions rather than accepting them.

Indeed, Trump’s own method sometimes assists the Iranians. He uses ambiguity, threats, exaggeration, and shifting demands—tools similar to those he accuses Tehran of using.

When two sides negotiate in the same way, the talks become a prolonged test of nerves rather than a direct path toward an agreement.

Who Trusts Whom?

What is happening in the region is no longer merely a test of power, but a test of trust.

Iran does not trust that the United States will deliver its side of the bargain after Tehran makes concessions. Washington does not trust that Tehran will comply after receiving what it wants. Meanwhile, the world does not fully trust either side’s promises, because both negotiate under arms and change their rhetoric as pressure shifts.

The agreement is therefore obstructed not only by a lack of solutions, but by the absence of a party willing to move first and trust that the other side will not exploit that move.

The question facing the mediators is no longer: What should the agreement contain?

It is: Who guarantees whom, who moves first, and what happens if one side fulfills its commitment while the other retreats?

Has evasion itself become an undeclared understanding between the two sides to keep negotiations open and postpone a resolution?

Where Do the Region and the World Stand?

The Gulf states and the wider region are not merely spectators to the negotiations. They are pushing for de-escalation, demanding clear positions, protecting their facilities and waterways, and developing defensive and maritime options in anticipation of the agreement’s failure.

The major powers, meanwhile, are monitoring oil markets, insurance, and supply chains, but none can independently impose a settlement on Washington or Tehran.

The paradox is that the countries surrounding Iran face the immediate danger and global markets bear the economic cost, while the final decision remains largely in the hands of two parties that will not bear the consequences of failure alone.

Where Is the Shock Plan?

There is a plan capable of reducing the space for evasion, but it does not necessarily involve a military strike.

It would be based on a limited written U.S. offer defining the requirements, the concessions in return, and the timetable. Implementation would be divided into simultaneous and verifiable steps, with a single negotiating channel, no announcement of any understanding before it is signed, and automatic, clearly defined consequences if either party violates its commitments.

Implementing such a plan, however, first requires agreement within the U.S. administration—and with Israel and other allies—on the final objective and the acceptable price. That agreement does not yet appear to have been reached.

Washington is therefore not playing along with Iran because it is incapable of shocking it militarily, but because it has yet to determine what outcome it wants to impose after the shock.

Trump’s problem is not that he has failed to understand Iran’s method, but that he has yet to find a way to prevent its evasion without becoming entangled in a cost he does not want to bear.

Why Does Trump Repeat the Phrase?

Describing the Iranians as devious serves several purposes for the U.S. president:

First: It explains the delay in reaching an agreement without admitting that military and economic pressure have failed to produce the desired result.

Second: It prepares public opinion for a possible return to military strikes if negotiations fail.

Third: It pressures the mediators to compel Iran to turn verbal messages into written and verifiable commitments.

Fourth: It protects Trump’s image as a strong negotiator. If an agreement succeeds, he will have overcome exceptionally cunning negotiators. If it fails, Iran will be portrayed as having deceived the mediators and broken its understandings.

Fifth: It sends a message to his team not to regard Iranian approval as final until it has been translated into action on the ground.

This raises the question that encapsulates the dilemma:

Is Trump describing a genuine Iranian method? Is he justifying his inability to convert American superiority into a result? Or is he doing both?

Is Trump Right?

He is partly right, but he does not present the complete picture.

The facts confirm that Iran uses public denial, indirect negotiations, the separation of issues, the reinterpretation of understandings, the addition of conditions, and the gaining of time.

It does not treat an agreement as a mutual concession occurring at a single moment, but as a process in which it attempts to secure a new return at every stage.

This does not prove, however, that the Iranians violate every agreement or that they alone are responsible for the deadlock.

Some of what Trump calls deception may result from incomplete wording, a distinction between agreeing to discuss an issue and agreeing to implement it, or an Iranian attempt to protect the government’s domestic image.

The U.S. administration has also sometimes exaggerated what was achieved, changed its demands, issued threats and then retreated, thereby weakening confidence in the consistency of its position.

BETH Analysis

Acknowledging Iranian negotiating skill should not lead to exaggerating Iran’s power.

Iran emerged from the war militarily and economically damaged, but it is trying to convert the cards it still holds—foremost among them Hormuz, time, and ambiguity—into a political price greater than its actual weight.

It is not negotiating from a position of complete strength; it is skillfully negotiating over how to conceal its weakness and reduce its cost.

The United States, by contrast, possesses overwhelming military and economic superiority, but has yet to convert that superiority into a clear and definitive political objective.

Between threats and de-escalation, strikes and retreat, Washington has given Tehran time to test its patience and the credibility of its threats.

This raises an older question: Is war not deception?

If so, who is deceiving whom? And who ultimately emerges victorious?

Or is what we are witnessing not a victory for either side, but an ebb and flow in which power advances and then retreats, while each wave delivers nothing to the shore but more debris?

A realistic reading does not fall into either side’s propaganda. It neither turns Iran into an extraordinary power nor assumes that possessing power necessarily means the United States knows how to employ it politically.

The most accurate description, therefore, is neither that “the Iranians are cunning” as an absolute judgment nor that Trump’s words are entirely untrue.

More precisely, they are disciplined negotiators skilled in using ambiguity, time, and denial, facing a president skilled at creating pressure but sometimes prone to announcing a result before it is complete.

Iran does not appear larger because it is as powerful as it is portrayed, but because the United States has yet to determine what it wants from Tehran, when it will carry out its threats, and when it will step back from them.

Iran negotiates skillfully over its weakness, while America possesses more power than it is currently capable of employing politically.