American President Donald Trump has alleged that the Islamic Republic of Iran is pleading with the United States’ government for a peace deal.

“They’re begging to make a deal, not me,” Mr Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Thursday, while throwing fresh barbs at NATO and the United Kingdom in particular.

Mr Trump reiterated his desire for Iran to “permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions” and to, in his words, “chart a new path forward.”

“We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their worst nightmare. In the meantime, we’ll just keep blowing them away unimpeded. Unstopped there’s not a thing they can do about it. They can’t do anything about it. You know, I tell you, if they could, if they could, you’d be hearing about it. You’d be hearing about it. You don’t hear anything about it,” Mr Trump said.

The U.S. president also trumpeted America’s military infrastructure and said the ongoing conflict is “not even a contest.”

“They can’t shoot our jets. We have the best. We have the best military equipment in the world. No, not even a contest,” he boasted.

Mr Trump also expressed his disappointment at NATO, accusing the alliance of doing “absolutely nothing.”

He took particular jibes at the UK, saying its aircraft carriers are “toys” compared to those of the U.S.

“We had the UK say that we’ll send our aircraft carriers—this is three weeks ago—which aren’t the best aircraft carriers, by the way; they’re toys compared to what we have. But we’ll send our aircraft carrier when the war is over. I said, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful, thank you very much. Don’t bother; we don’t need it. We don’t need it’, and we don’t need them,” Mr Trump said.

He revealed that the Gulf region and the U.S. were “shocked” by Iran’s retaliatory attacks in the Middle East.

Mr Trump said, “They start shooting at Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, and Oman. They start shooting at them… Everybody was shocked, including us. You know why? Because they’re sick. And they had a plan to take over the Middle East.”

He said Iran was “lousy fighters but great negotiators.”

“They are begging to work out a deal. I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that. I don’t know if we’re willing to do that. They should have done that four weeks ago. They should have done it two years ago,” Mr Trump said.