Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that now is a critical time for the US to reach a nuclear deal with Iran given the country’s uranium enrichment levels.

“We have to roll that back one way or another and we hope it’s peacefully and through the process of negotiation,” Rubio added.

During his Gulf tour, President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that Iran must never obtain a nuclear weapon, threatening to strike the country if it fails to reach a nuclear deal. But he has not explicitly ruled out Iran enriching uranium on its own soil. While uranium can be weaponized if enriched to high levels, it can also be used as a nuclear fuel.

Trump said earlier Thursday that the US is “very close” to reaching a deal with Iran after Tehran “sort of” agreed to its terms. Iranian officials haven’t publicly commented on Trump’s remarks, though the comments were reported by the country’s semi-official ISNA news agency. CNN has requested a comment from Iran’s mission to the United Nations.

CNN’s Betsy Klein and Nadeen Ebrahim contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump is in the United Arab Emirates, the third and final stop of his Middle East trip after he visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Here’s a recap of the trip:

The US has several new agreements with Saudi Arabia, focusing on cooperation in areas like military, customs authorities and medical research. Meanwhile, Trump secured a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the US, the White House said.

Trump on Monday defended the plan to accept a luxury plane from the Qatari royal family, saying the US can’t turn down a free jet. CNN reported that the Boeing 747-8 jet would be retrofitted to be used as Air Force One. The plan raised substantial ethical and legal questions about foreign influence over the US government because of the plane’s massive value. It also raises significant security concerns. Separately, on Wednesday, Qatar signed an agreement to purchase jets from US manufacturer Boeing for Qatar Airways.

The US announced a new weapons sale of over $1.4 billion to the UAE, just days before Trump was scheduled to visit. The US and UAE also announced a partnership to build a massive data center complex in Abu Dhabi to advance artificial intelligence capabilities with 5-gigawatts of capacity — enough to power a major city.

Trump announced Tuesday that he plans to lift sanctions on Syria. On Wednesday, he met with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia. Trump said the US is “exploring normalizing relations” with Syria.

The Trump family’s business ties have more than tripled since the president’s first term in office, a CNN tally of the deals has found, including new projects announced since he reclaimed the White House.

The United States and United Arab Emirates will partner to build a massive data center complex in Abu Dhabi to advance artificial intelligence capabilities with 5-gigawatts of capacity — enough to power a major city.

The agreement, announced Thursday during US President Donald Trump’s visit to the UAE, will mark the largest data center deployment outside of the United States, according to the Commerce Department. It will begin with a 1-gigawatt AI data center, but will eventually span 10 square miles.

The project is also expected to expand the footprint of American AI and cloud companies in the Middle East, allowing them to better serve the global south. No companies were named in the Commerce Department’s announcement, although Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was spotted at one of Trump’s UAE meetings. Nvidia declined to comment.

Trump has been working to push AI investment, as the success of US tech companies are seen as key to retaining the US’s position as a global superpower.

The UAE has also said it wants to become a global leader in artificial intelligence by 2031. Ahead of Trump’s visit, UAE Minister of Education Sarah Al Amiri said the country is looking to diversify its economy, especially in the areas of AI and technology. Investments in AI infrastructure are seen as crucial to securing the region’s post-oil future.

The White House also announced on Thursday an agreement under which the UAE has committed to build or finance data centers in the United States that are “at least as large and as powerful” as those in the UAE.