US President Donald Trump said that he is optimistic about reaching a deal with Iran, pointing to “very good negotiations” and Iran’s decision to allow 20 oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz as a “sign of respect.”
On board Air Force One, while speaking to reporters en route to Joint Base Andrews, Trump said, “I do see a deal in Iran, yeah. Could be soon.”
“So we’ve had very good negotiations today with Iran, getting a lot of the things that they should have given us a long time ago. See how it works out, but they’re very good, moving along very nicely. And they’ve destroyed a lot of additional targets today. The Navy’s gone, the Air Force’s gone, we know that. We’ve destroyed many, many targets today. It was a big day. And we are negotiating with them directly and indirectly,” he added.
Trump also criticized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed under former US President Barack Obama, which resulted in the prevention of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and praised his reversal of the JCPOA.
The US President mentioned that Iran initially agreed to send 10 boats, and then added 10 more, which he considers a positive development.
Trump suggested that the U.S. had essentially dismantled Iran’s conventional capabilities while simultaneously talking to them.
“We have emissaries, but we are also dealing directly, and as you know, they’ve agreed to send 8 boats two days ago, and then they added another two, so it was 10 boats. And now today, they gave us, as a tribute, I don’t know, I can’t define it exactly, but they gave us, I think, out of a sign of respect, 20 boats of oil, big, big boats of oil going through the Hormuz Strait. And that’s taking place starting tomorrow morning over the next couple of days, a lot of boats,” said Trump.
He also reshared Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s X post mentioning Iran’s nod to allow transit to 20 Pakistani-flagged ships through the Hormuz Strait.
“I would only say that we’re doing extremely well in that negotiation, but you never know with Iran because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up, whether it’s the B-2 bombers or just terminating, as an example, the Iran nuclear deal done by Barack Hussein Obama, probably the worst deal we’ve ever done as a country, one of the dumbest deals we’ve ever done. But I terminated it, fortunately, otherwise right now they’d have a nuclear weapon,” he added.
On the US 15-point plan sent to Iran, and their reciprocal 5-point demands sent to America, Trump said, “Yeah… They gave us most of the points — why wouldn’t they?… and just to prove that they’re serious, they gave us all of these [oil] boats.”
Trump also claimed that Iran had effectively undergone a “regime change” after the deaths of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior officials in the early phase of the war. Referring to the country’s new leadership, he said, “The people we’re dealing with are a totally different group of people… [They] are very professional.”
He repeated his assertion that Mojtaba Khamenei, the late supreme leader’s son and Tehran’s new top authority, may be dead or critically injured. “The son is either dead or in extremely bad shape,” Trump added. “We’ve not heard from him at all. He’s gone.”
The war in West Asia has already spilled beyond Iran and Israel.
On Friday, an attack on a U.S air base in Saudi Arabia wounded 12 American troops and damaged a $270 million E-3 Sentry surveillance aircraft.
Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen also fired a ballistic missile toward Israel, raising fears of a new escalation front and deepening concerns about the global energy crisis.
Despite the military threats, Trump said indirect talks with Tehran, conducted through Pakistani intermediaries, were making progress. He added that he had given Iran until April 6 to accept a deal to end the war, warning that failure to do so would trigger U.S. strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure.
