Trump claims Iran ‘wants to work a deal’ as US begins Hormuz blockade

WASHINGTON/DUBAI - President Donald Trump said Iran reached out to his administration over peace negotiations, as the US began a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in the war’s seventh week.

Even as Mr Trump sought to jawbone negotiations back on track, there were few signs that was taking place after weekend negotiations failed in Islamabad. Iran blamed the collapse of talks on the US and Tehran has not confirmed further discussions on April 13.

“We’ve been called this morning by the right people, the appropriate people, and they want to work a deal,” Mr Trump said at the White House, without elaborating on who participated in the conversation. 

Mr Trump spoke hours after the US moved to cut off vessels from transiting the vital waterway to and from Iranian ports and coastal areas, which could further inflame tensions amid the global energy crisis.

The US president once again claimed that negotiations had failed due to Iran’s insistence on maintaining a nuclear programme. Mr Trump said he was “sure” Iran will eventually agree to abandon nuclear ambitions, and reiterated there would be no deal without that concession. 

The US president said again that there are countries willing to support the US mission in Hormuz, but declined to name them and said he would provide further details on April 14.

Oil prices rose as investors braced for further supply shortages if the US blockade curtails the flow of Iranian oil to global markets. Prices remained choppy, though, as trading costs have surged, in turn sapping liquidity. 

Crude’s gains were capped after Mr Trump said Iran had reached out on April 13 for a deal. Both benchmarks traded near US$99 (S$126) a barrel by 1.53pm in New York. 

Mr Trump’s blockade will test the durability of a fragile ceasefire with Iran and intensifies a global energy crisis in a six-week war that’s seen thousands of deaths across the region. It marks the latest move by the US president to strong-arm Iran into easing its own chokehold over the strait after talks in Pakistan on extending the ceasefire failed to reach a deal.

“We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world,” Mr Trump said. He also claimed, without evidence, that “many ships are heading to our country right now” to load up with US oil and repeated that “we don’t use the strait – we don’t need the strait.”

Iran has said it would target all ports in the Persian Gulf if its own shipping hubs are threatened, setting up a fresh standoff in waters that typically see flows of about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas.

The security of ports in the region is “either for everyone or for no one,” Iran’s armed forces said in a statement on April 13, according to the state-run IRIB News. The US blocking the strait would be “an act of piracy,” it said, reiterating plans to permanently control the critical waterway even after the war.

Mr Trump had warned shortly after the deadline passed that the US would target Iranian ships, using the same tactics it did against alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea in recent months.

“What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, ‘fast attack ships,’ because we did not consider them much of a threat. Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea,” Mr Trump said in a social-media post. 

Still, Mr Trump looked to downplay concerns around the further potential shock to global energy markets, claiming in a separate post that 34 ships had transited the strait on April 12, “by far the highest number since this foolish closure began.”

Bloomberg reported earlier that 19 vessels passed through the waterway in either direction on April 12.

Shortly before the deadline, the US published a notice to vessels in the region saying that it would intercept, divert or capture vessels leaving Iran after that time. The note said that neutral ships that haven’t called at Iran would not be impeded, though they may be searched for contraband cargo. 

The US blockade will be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas,” according to an April 12 statement from US Central Command, which said US forces would not impede vessels transiting Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.

Disruptions in the strait also pose risks for China, which remains Iran’s largest oil customer and a key trade partner. Beijing has called for an immediate ceasefire, warning that a blockade threatens global trade.

Mr Trump said on April 13 that he had yet to hear from Chinese President Xi Jinping about the conflict, but added that Mr Xi “would like to see this ended also.”

Neither side has publicly committed to another round of negotiations. 

“The US must learn: you can’t dictate terms to Iran,” Iran’s former foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, posted on X on April 12. “It’s not too late to learn. Yet.”

While the US and Israel have paused the bombing of Iran – and Tehran has in turn stopped firing missiles at Gulf states – Israel has maintained its invasion of Lebanon to target Hezbollah, a Tehran-backed militant group. 

That ongoing offensive, which the Lebanese government says has killed more than 2,000 people, was a bone of contention while the terms of the US-Iran ceasefire struck last week were being ironed out. Talks between Israel and the Lebanese government – which has long pledged to disarm Hezbollah without success – are set to take place this week. 

The US-Iran two-week ceasefire agreement is set to expire on April 22, if the US blockade doesn’t lead to its collapse before then. BLOOMBERG