President Donald Trump suggested the United States could remain in Iran under a Venezuela-style oil arrangement while predicting the war will end this year, and separately warned that America must maintain its artificial intelligence lead over China.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
President Donald Trump on Sunday raised the possibility that the United States could remain in Iran and “keep the oil,” comparing the idea with Washington’s recent arrangement involving Venezuelan oil reserves as he again predicted the Iran war could end before the close of 2026.
Speaking to reporters at the Irish Open at his Doonbeg golf resort, Trump said the United States would eventually withdraw from Iran unless Washington determined that remaining involved to control oil resources was preferable.
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“We’ll ultimately get out (of Iran), unless we decide to stay and keep the oil like Venezuela,” Trump said, adding that U.S. revenue from the Venezuela arrangement has “paid for the war many times.”
Trump reiterated that he expects the conflict with Iran to end this year and suggested an agreement could come shortly after the U.S. midterm elections in November.
He also predicted that gasoline prices would “drop like a rock” once the war ends.
The comments come as turmoil across the Middle East continues to disrupt energy markets, including an attack on a major Saudi oil pipeline that added to concerns over supply.
Trump said he remains willing to negotiate with Tehran but would accept only an agreement he considers favorable to the United States.
He said he would make the “right deal” and would not agree to one that was “no good.”
Trump also said Iran was “calling constantly” seeking peace talks, an assertion Tehran has previously disputed.
His suggestion that the United States might remain in Iran introduced another potential outcome alongside a negotiated withdrawal.
The president compared the possibility directly with the U.S. approach in Venezuela, where Washington announced an arrangement in August involving a portion of the country’s enormous oil reserves.
During the same appearance in Ireland, Trump also addressed another issue he described as strategically critical for the United States: the race for global leadership in artificial intelligence.
Asked whether rapidly advancing AI systems should be slowed or subjected to greater regulation, Trump argued that the United States must preserve its advantage over China.
“We’re leading China in AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins,” Trump told reporters.
Trump acknowledged that safeguards could be implemented but pushed back against some of the more severe warnings surrounding the technology.
“We could put guardrails. We can do this and that. But I think you have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen,” Trump said.
His comments followed renewed warnings from researchers and artificial intelligence executives who argue that AI capabilities may be advancing faster than systems designed to keep them safe.
Two Anthropic researchers recently warned that rapidly progressing artificial intelligence could eventually pose an extinction-level threat to humanity, while Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Saturday proposed a three-part framework intended to slow the pace of increasingly powerful models and give safety measures more time to develop.
The issue has also exposed a central tension in proposals to slow artificial intelligence: Even researchers concerned about the technology’s risks acknowledge that competition between the United States and China could make unilateral restraint difficult.
Jacob Coxon, one of the Anthropic researchers who resigned before publicly raising concerns, called for international coordination rather than allowing countries to continue accelerating development against one another.
“I feel we need international coordination, or else we risk running the same race with China, which could be equally dangerous,” Coxon said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
The Pentagon has also raised concerns this year involving risks associated with Anthropic’s AI model, while the Trump administration has generally supported rapid development of the U.S. artificial intelligence industry.
Trump’s remarks Sunday made clear that he views technological competition with China as a central consideration in deciding how aggressively Washington should regulate the industry.
His comments on both Iran and artificial intelligence reflected two different questions confronting the administration — how long the United States should remain engaged in a Middle East conflict and how quickly it should allow a transformative technology to advance.
On Iran, Trump left open both a negotiated withdrawal and the possibility of remaining to “keep the oil.”
On artificial intelligence, he left room for “guardrails” but rejected slowing the United States in a way that could allow China to move ahead.
“Whoever wins AI wins,” Trump said.
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