US President Donald Trump played down the prospect of renewed fighting in the war with Iran, even as questions remain over Tehran’s nuclear program and access to the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking to ABC News on Tuesday, Trump said extending a ceasefire that expires next week may not be necessary, hinting at near-term progress toward a deal to end the near seven-week conflict. In a Fox Business interview, he said the war is “close to over.”
An initial round of peace talks between the two sides ended in Pakistan on Sunday without a deal. A second meeting hasn’t been agreed, though work has been ongoing this week to secure a new time and place, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
Talks might restart “over the next two days,” Trump told the New York Post, which would mean by Thursday.
Trump’s upbeat assessment of the prospects for diplomacy boosted market sentiment, with stocks steadying on Wednesday after several major indexes erased declines since the war began in February. Oil prices remain elevated, with Brent crude trading at $95.60 barrel, about 33% higher than before the start of the war.
Trump has vacillated throughout the war between declaring it all but over and threatening a major escalation, and many questions remain about the issues that drove the US and Israel to start their bombardment of the Islamic Republic.
Chief among those is the future of Iran’s nuclear program. Israel maintains Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium must be removed, while Trump told the New York Post he’s unhappy about reports that the US proposed a two-decade moratorium on enrichment as part of the Pakistan talks, saying Iran can never be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
The whereabouts of Iran’s uranium has been unknown since the US and Israel bombed the country’s nuclear facilities in June, and International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have been barred access since then. Iran has always said it isn’t pursuing a weapons program.
A second issue is the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas was shipped before the war. Iran has kept the chokepoint closed to all but its own crude since the start of the fighting, triggering a global supply crisis, and has said it wants to maintain control even after the conflict is over.
The US began a naval blockade of Hormuz on Monday to curb the Islamic Republic’s oil exports, and US Centcom has said it’s been fully implemented since going into effect.
The navy has been impeding traffic outside the strait in the Gulf of Oman and appears to have forced some carriers, including the US-sanctioned Rich Starry, to make a U-turn back toward the Persian Gulf. An Iraq-bound supertanker sailed through the waterway on its second attempt, making it the first crude carrier to head west through the conduit since the US blockade began.
Iranian authorities were on Tuesday considering a pause in shipments through Hormuz to avoid testing the US blockade and jeopardizing fresh negotiations, according to a person familiar with Tehran’s deliberations, who asked not to be identified as the talks are private.
Even so, an Iranian supertanker sailed through the strait into Iranian waters despite the blockade, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported, without identifying the vessel. The passage wasn’t confirmed by the US.
The US is using more than a dozen vessels to enforce the blockade. They include the USS Tripoli amphibious assault ship, accompanied by F-35 jets and Marine vessels for boarding operations, as well as the USS Canberra littoral combat ship that could help clear sea mines.
The Trump administration will allow a waiver that temporarily authorizes the purchase of certain Iranian crude oil to expire this weekend, the Treasury Department said. A similar waiver for Russian crude, part of efforts to ease global energy shocks from the war, lapsed last week.
China’s CSI 300 Index became the latest gauge to recoup losses since the conflict started on Feb. 28, joining Taiwan and Singapore. Wall Street benchmarks have already reclaimed those levels, with the S&P 500 closing in on its record high set in late January.
While crude oil has come off wartime highs, US gasoline and diesel prices remain at their highest seasonal levels ever, a pain point for consumers ahead of summer travel.
Iran’s missile attacks have caused extensive damage to Gulf energy infrastructure and the Hormuz closure has disrupted oil and gas supplies beyond the region, issues that could take some time to iron out.
That’s triggered fears of a global inflation crisis. Surging prices of products such as jet fuel and gasoline are already squeezing consumers, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday, pointing toward the first annual decline in global oil demand since 2020.
Fighting has largely paused since the truce was announced on April 7, except in Lebanon, where Israel continues operations against Iran-backed Hezbollah. Talks between Israel and Lebanon began Tuesday in Washington to address the parallel conflict, which has killed more than 2,000 people, according to Lebanese authorities.
Israel’s spy chief pledged more covert efforts to try to topple Iran’s government, suggesting the countries’ conflict will continue even if the US agrees to a peace deal. “Our mission has yet to be completed,” David Barnea, the head of Mossad, said in a speech.
Trump told ABC News that, while an official peace agreement may not be necessary, “I think a deal is preferable because then they can rebuild.”
“They really do have a different regime now. No matter what, we took out the radicals,” he said.
Several senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have been killed in US-Israeli strikes. There’s no indication Khamenei’s son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, represents a different kind of leadership.