United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday, in a cabinet meeting, indicated that the door remains open for more negotiations with Iran but denied facing any political pressure to finalise a peace
deal and end the three-month-long war and the looming fuel crisis.
He said the upcoming midterm elections and rising gas prices, triggered by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, have not added any pressure on him to seal a deal and reopen the crucial waterway for oil tankers and commercial shipping traffic.
While insisting that his war strategy will not be impacted by the midterm elections, Trump said that Iran is “negotiating on fumes”. “Maybe we have to go back and finish it, maybe we don’t,” the US president said.
Trump said, “I don’t think (Iran) has a choice” but to make a peace deal. “They’re just going back to the internet because they’re getting clobbered,” he said.
Also Read: ‘Trump Seeking A Way Out’: Iran Refuses To Budge On Uranium, Hormuz And Sanctions Relief
“They thought they were going to outwait me, you know, we’ll outwait him, he’s got the midterms. I don’t care about the midterms, look what happened last night, that was the prelude to the midterms,” the US president added.
The remark appeared to reference Tuesday night’s victory in Texas, where Trump-backed candidate Ken Paxton defeated longtime Republican heavyweight Senator John Cornyn in a primary runoff contest.
Addressing gas prices, which touched a four-year high in the United States over the Memorial Day weekend, Trump brushed aside suggestions that the spike had heightened the urgency to secure a deal. “The primary urgency is that we can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said, further predicting that prices were “going to come down fast.”
US Strikes Iran
Hours after Iran launched drones over the Strait of Hormuz, the United States carried out what it described as “self-defence” strikes targeting Iranian military infrastructure in the south of the country.
Also Read: ‘Will Have To Blow Oman Up’: Trump Says Nobody Will Control Hormuz, Dismisses Iran’s Proposal
The US military struck a facility in Bandar Abbas, Iran’s key port city along the Strait of Hormuz, with US Central Command (Centcom) saying its forces had intercepted four Iranian one-way attack drones “that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz”.
According to Centcom, American forces also targeted the drones’ ground control station as Iran was preparing to launch a fifth drone.
Iranian state media reported explosions east of Bandar Abbas following the strikes.
The escalation comes despite a fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, as both sides remain engaged in drawn-out negotiations aimed at ending the three-month conflict that has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and driven up global energy prices.
