President Donald Trump said Saturday that he has rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, after Iranian officials indicated that shipping through the critical waterway could resume within days if a deal was sealed.
“I rejected their deal. They want to make a deal where they open the strait immediately because they’re losing so badly,” Trump told reporters as he boarded Marine One on the White House lawn, after indirect talks between the two countries were held on the sidelines of this week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“What they wanted is to immediately open the Hormuz Strait. You know why? Because they’re dying. You know why they’re dying? Because they have no money coming in because they get their money from the Hormuz Strait,” he continued. “They outsmarted themselves. They said, ‘Let’s close it and cause a problem for the world.’ And I came along, and we put up the greatest blockade ever in military history.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported that Trump had rejected Iran’s offer to revive a ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said Friday that the choice “rests with the United States.”
“If the necessary conditions are met, the strait can be reopened and normal maritime passage restored within seven days,” Araghchi told reporters.
He said a “concrete seven-day plan” that includes reopening the strait had been conveyed to the U.S. through mediator Qatar and was ready to start “as soon as the United States accepts this plan.”
Araghchi said the actions required of the U.S. in Iran’s proposal were commitments already agreed to in the June memorandum of understanding between the two countries that laid out plans for a temporary ceasefire. That agreement, signed in June, collapsed within days after fresh strikes were exchanged.
One of the conditions of the plan is for the U.S. to accept a maritime transit route through the Strait of Hormuz that has been agreed upon by Iran and Oman, Araghchi had said Thursday.
A U.S. official said on Friday that the Trump administration was having positive and constructive discussions through the mediators but that it was not in any hurry to reach an agreement.
“The United States is in a very strong position with control of the Strait of Hormuz, so we are not in a rush,” the U.S. official said. “Over the last 48 hours, nearly 40 million barrels of oil have transited the Strait.”
Early Saturday, President Donald Trump posted an image to Truth Social of the Strait of Hormuz labelled the “Trump Strait.”
Earlier this week, Trump said he was still considering whether to “annihilate” Iran or make a deal. Early Saturday, he posted an image to Truth Social of the Strait of Hormuz labeled the “Trump Strait.”
In an interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that resolving the Hormuz issue “is possible through negotiations, not the use of force,” but warned that his country does not “trust” talks with Washington.
Trump has repeatedly said that the goal of attacking Iran was to prevent the development of a nuclear weapon. Soon after the war started, Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which some 20% of the world’s oil flowed before the conflict, sending shock waves through the world economy.
Pezeshkian on Thursday suggested his government was willing to make a deal with the U.S. to end the war before Americans head to the polls this November.
“We don’t want it to get to the midterm elections,” Pezeshkian said in a brief meeting with NBC News and other news organizations, two days after Trump said that he believed the Iranian regime would not make a deal to settle the conflict until after November’s elections.
“I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election because it doesn’t make sense for them not to,” Trump said. “They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election.”
Polls show Democrats with an advantage heading into the November midterms. The latest NBC News Decision Desk Poll found 31% of respondents approved of Trump’s handling of the Iran war, while 69% disapproved.
The U.S. this week announced it would put sanctions on any global companies doing business with Iranian airlines, with the aim of grounding Iran’s entire civil fleet worldwide.
Iraq said Saturday that it was engaging with the U.S. in an effort to restore humanitarian flights to and from Iran, after Iranian airlines were barred from neighboring countries in response to the sanctions.
Efforts were ongoing to “secure exemptions for certain Iraqi airports from these measures” in order to enable “the resumption of flights for humanitarian reasons, such as medical treatment, education, religious pilgrimages, and the interests of civilians,” the Iraqi prime minister’s office said.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that flights had also been shut down to Oman, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Abigail Williams, Monica Alba, Megan Shannon, Patrick Maguire and Betsy Mahoney contributed.
