‘More compromises’: Trump wants an end to Iran war

President Donald Trump is eager to negotiate an end to the Iran war as evidenced by his announcement on Thursday of a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.

Even as Washington and Tehran remain far apart, Trump’s offer to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House is the latest example of how the American goal posts have moved in just the last several days.

Last week, the president referred to Israel’s attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon as a “separate skirmish” and insisted that it wasn’t part of the ceasefire deal with Tehran. But in pushing Netanyahu to halt a punishing bombing campaign, Trump has removed a potential deal-breaker for Iran from the equation.

After negotiations last weekend in Pakistan yielded no breakthrough, Trump — facing rising consumer costs and sinking poll numbers — may be more amenable to at least some of Tehran’s demands than his public stance would suggest.

“I think he would accept more compromises because he badly wants this to end,” said a senior Gulf official familiar with the peace talks and granted anonymity to discuss them. Trump “is serious about talks and badly wants this to end, but the Iranians are so far refusing to give him what he needs to save face and leave.”

Despite Vice President JD Vance’s statement that he already delivered America’s “final offer” in Islamabad, backchannel talks are ongoing.

Two days after he said that the resumption of high-level talks was only days away, the president told reporters Thursday before departing for Las Vegas that a new round of in-person negotiations could happen as soon as this weekend.

“Iran wants to make a deal, and we are dealing very nicely with them,” he said, reiterating his red line that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and stating that “they are willing to do things today that they weren’t willing to do two months ago.”

Trump seemed to dismiss the idea that a deal that could include a 20-year moratorium on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium but he only explicitly ruled out Tehran getting a weapon. He did not, on Thursday, specifically say Iran would never be able to enrich uranium.

“We have a very powerful statement that they will not have beyond 20 years, that they will not have nuclear weapons,” Trump said. “There is no 20-year limit.”

The White House did not specifically answer whether the president might accept a deal that allowed Iran to enrich uranium for civilian purposes at some point in the future.

“President Trump, Vice President [JD] Vance and the negotiating team have made the U.S. redlines very clear,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The Iranians’ desperation for a deal will only increase with President Trump’s highly effective Naval blockade now in effect, which is sending oil tankers towards the big, beautiful Gulf of America.”

But according to two people familiar with the ongoing talks and granted anonymity to discuss them, the 20-year moratorium is actually the administration’s proposal, a key plank of the 14-point U.S. plan. Iran, the two people said, has offered only a five-year stoppage. Trump is also demanding that Iran agree to give up its supply of partially enriched uranium, which could be retrieved by an agreed-on third country, the two people said. Iran, thus far, is refusing to give it up.

He told reporters Thursday that Iran has “agreed to give us back the nuclear dust that’s way underground,” an assertion that Tehran has yet to corroborate.

Those sticking points make clear that, for all Trump and Vance’s insisting that they “hold the cards” in the talks, Iran has demonstrated an ability to absorb blockades and bombardments while continuing to keep a stranglehold on global markets by restricting the flow of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

The impasse has left a number of world leaders and analysts skeptical that a deal can be reached quickly, especially considering that the 2015 nuclear agreement — often referred to as JCPOA, its initials — between Iran and the U.S. and five other countries took two years to negotiate. And that was after many earlier years of discussions, negotiations, sanctions and a preliminary agreement.

“Iran holds a lot of the cards right now,” said Finnish President Alex Stubb during an appearance in Washington earlier this week. “I’m afraid that is a reality.”

Trump’s move this week to impose a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz is an effort to negate Iran’s main leverage point and bring its leaders back to the table. While the blockade reduces Iran’s economic lifeline — its ability to export oil — it also exacerbates the supply crunch resulting from Iran’s weekslong restrictions on freighter traffic through the critical waterway.

“It’s intended to tell Iran that we have options, that they can’t run out the clock and get a better deal,” said Eyck Freymann, a Hoover fellow at Stanford University. “But we don’t have that much leverage because Iran can also see that the longer the strait is closed, sending oil prices higher, the harder it is for the president politically.”

The White House has said that the military can maintain the blockade for as long as necessary. But analysts believe an extended blockade could come at a high cost, not simply from increasing the risk of a global recession driven by a shortage of oil but also in terms of an operation involving some 10,000 U.S. sailors, Marines and airmen, draining military resources and readiness. White House budget director Russ Vought told lawmakers Wednesday that the Trump administration hasn’t settled on “a ballpark” range for how much funding it needs from Congress for the Iran conflict.

“Can tactically doubling down for a few weeks, even if it increases the short-term pain, buy the White House a better long-term deal that constrains Iran?” Freymann continued. “Maybe. But a big reason why Trump wants to find a way to end this is because the bombing campaign against Iran is coming to the end of its tether. Every extended-range missile we fire now weakens our deterrence in the fight with China.”

Trump, eager to avoid a broader rift with Beijing ahead of his planned visit next month, has seen at least one Chinese oil tanker get through the blockade this week, according to shipping data.

“Iran pays for its economy by sending oil to China, so if the president wants to keep pressure up on Iran he will have to ensure that none of that oil leaves the Gulf,” said Jamil N. Jaffer, former chief counsel and senior advisor to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “If the U.S. doesn’t enforce that, then there’s not a lot of additional pressure to put on Iran without either restarting bombing or reopening the Strait by escorting ships.”

Around the world, countries are bracing for the blockade’s potential impact. The head of the International Energy Agency told the Associated Press on Thursday that Europe has “maybe six weeks or so” of jet fuel left in reserve before the oil shortage would cause mass cancellations.

“It’s an economic game of chicken, but one in which the Europeans and Asians are caught in between, ” said a European diplomat who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “I can’t see how the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] can lose since they have nothing or much less to lose.”

An Asian diplomat, also granted anonymity, said that a prolonged blockade of more than a month could amount to a “prolonged shock” to the global economy. “Export diversification via pipelines and non-Hormuz routes are partially offsetting losses, but I’m not sure how long these work-arounds will hold, because Iran can always take them out if they look at this increasingly as a war of attrition.”

If Trump eventually ends the blockade and accepts a deal with any possibility for future enrichment, it will prompt questions about the president’s strategy.

“This war has caused a lot of material damage, loss of life, not to speak of the isolation chamber it has created for the United States,” said Christopher Hill, a five-time U.S. ambassador who served under Democratic and Republican presidents. “Given the fact that some key aspects of the negotiations revolve around issues well known and painstakingly discussed and addressed over ten years ago in the JCPOA process, it is difficult to justify or even explain what has happened in the past month.”

Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.