Trump urges Iran to ‘get smart’ and sign a deal
US President Donald Trump has urged Iranian authorities to “get smart soon” and sign a deal to end the conflict.
Source: X
US President Donald Trump has warned Iran to “get smart soon” and sign a deal to end the conflict amid a report that the US is planning to extend its blockade.
On Wednesday (US time), Trump posted a manipulated image of himself clutching an assault rifle as bombs drop on an arid mountain landscape, with the slogan “No more Mr Nice Guy”.
He wrote that Iran “couldn’t get its act together”.
“They don’t know how to sign a non-nuclear deal. They’d better get smart soon!” Trump wrote, without explaining what such a deal would entail.
It comes as the Wall Street Journal reports that Trump had instructed aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran’s ports to try to force Tehran to capitulate.
Citing anonymous officials, the WSJ said Trump wanted to keep squeezing Iran’s economy and oil exports with the blockade as his other options — resuming bombing or walking away from the conflict — were riskier.
Donald Trump’s latest generated image of himself. Photo: Truth Social
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Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected the suggestion the Iran war, the cost of which has ballooned to $US25 billion ($A35 billion), was a “quagmire”.
Hegseth was testifying before Congress for the first time since the US and Israel launched the war against Iran on February 28, leading to a surge in petrol prices.
Democrats peppered Hegseth with questions about the open-ended conflict, with representative John Garamendi of California calling it a “quagmire” and “political and economic disaster at every level”.
Hegseth responded angrily.
“You call it a quagmire, handing propaganda to our enemies? Shame on you for that statement,” Hegseth said, criticising “reckless, feckless and defeatist” Congressional Democrats.
“Don’t say: ‘I support the troops’ on one hand, and then a two-month mission is a quagmire. … Who are you cheering for here? Who you pulling for?”
The $US25 billion figure on the Iran war’s cost was provided by a top defence official, acting Pentagon comptroller Jules Hurst, during the Armed Services Committee hearing.
Trump’s popularity has taken a pounding since the conflict began. A Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates just 34 per cent of the American public approves of the US conflict with Iran, down from 36 per cent in mid-April and 38 per cent in mid-March.
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Peace talks between the US and Iran have stalled. Iran wants some kind of US acknowledgment of its right to enrich uranium for what it says are peaceful, civilian purposes.
It has a stockpile of roughly 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 per cent, material that could be used for several nuclear weapons if further enriched.
Iranian officials said on Tuesday the country could withstand the blockade as it was using alternative trade routes, and the Islamic Republic did not consider the war over.
The conflict has killed thousands, thrown energy markets into turmoil and disrupted global trade routes.
Iran’s most recent offer for resolving the two-month war, suspended since April 8 under a ceasefire agreement, would set aside discussion of its nuclear program until the conflict was formally ended and shipping issues resolved.
However, that did not fulfil Trump’s demand to have the nuclear issue discussed from the outset.
Tehran has largely blocked all shipping, apart from its own, from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point for global energy supplies, since the war began on February 28.
In April, the US began blockading Iranian ships.
Hopes of a swift resolution to the conflict have receded since Trump last weekend scrapped a visit by his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to mediator Pakistan.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi visited the country twice on the weekend of April 25-26.
Since several senior Iranian political and military figures were killed in US-Israeli strikes, Iran no longer has a single, undisputed clerical arbiter at the pinnacle of power, which may be hardening Tehran’s negotiating stance.
Iranian officials and analysts say the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war, and the elevation of his wounded son, Mojtaba, to replace him as supreme leader, has handed more power to hardline commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Oil prices rose nearly 3 per cent on Wednesday, with the Brent contract hitting a one-month high, on concerns that an extended blockade of Iranian ports would prolong supply disruptions.
-with AAP
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