Trump says deal will ‘work out well’ even as US, Iran clash

[WASHINGTON, DC] US President Donald Trump said talks with Iran over an interim peace deal will “work out well,” even as the forces of the countries clashed again near the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump, in a Truth Social post, said constant speculation over whether he’ll agree to a deal – which will likely see the two sides extend their ceasefire by around two months, with Iran reopening the strait and the US lifting a blockade of Iranian ports – wasn’t helping.

“It is MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate, when political hacks keep negatively ‘chirping’,” Trump said, “that I should move faster, or move slower, or go to war, or not go to war, or whatever. Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end.”

Iran accused Washington of sending conflicting signals and dragging out negotiations. Teheran continues to engage with the US with “distrust,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Monday (Jun 1).

Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Israel’s escalation in Lebanon over the weekend and the blockade on Iranian ports are “clear evidence of US noncompliance with the ceasefire”, according to a social media post. “Every choice has a price, and the bill comes due. It will all fall into place.”

Trump is under pressure to end a war that has sent energy prices surging and is unpopular with most Americans. Yet he needs to balance that with the likely criticism that will come his way if Washington unfreezes billions of dollars of Iranian funds, as Teheran is demanding.

Iran also wants control of maritime traffic through the Hormuz strait – a crucial conduit for oil and liquefied natural gas. It says it has the right, along with Oman, to exercise sovereignty over the waterway and that shipping regulations imposed during the war will endure.

“It will certainly be hard, complicated and difficult and there will be criticism and pressure against us, but we will pursue carrying it out, and naturally we will not back down from this,” Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said in an interview on state TV. “These arrangements are not temporary.”

Tensions remain high and the US struck Iranian radar and command-and-control sites over the weekend. The American military said it was a “measured” response to “aggressive Iranian actions” including the shootdown of a drone over international waters.

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Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted an air base in retaliation, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, without identifying where the site was. On Monday morning, Kuwait said its air defences were responding to “hostile missile and drone attacks.”

Three ballistic missiles targeted the Ali Al-Salem airbase in Kuwait and were intercepted, a person familiar with the strikes said, asking not to be identified by name because details aren’t public.

The clashes are the latest in a series of skirmishes over the past week. None of them has derailed the talks taking place between Washington and Teheran. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, which has close ties to the IRGC, said Sunday that both sides continued proposing amendments to a draft deal, though stressed there’s no guarantee they’ll reach an agreement.

Oil prices rose on Monday, with Brent climbing 3.4 per cent to US$94.17 a barrel. The benchmark fell more than 11 per cent last week, with traders increasingly optimistic that there will be a deal and that the sides won’t revert to a full-on war.

Trump’s post on the negotiations was his first since a White House Situation Room meeting on Friday in which he said he would make a “final determination”. Instead, he held off as the sides continue to negotiate details related to Iran’s stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium and how the reopening of the Hormuz waterway, which probably needs to be demined first, will be carried out.

Iran says any agreement with the US must apply to all fighting across the region, including in Lebanon where Teheran-backed Hezbollah and Israel are engaged in a parallel war.

Israel has deepened its invasion of the Arab country, capturing the Crusader-era Beaufort Castle over the weekend, while Hezbollah has stepped up attacks on Israel’s north. The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired more than 300 “projectiles” at its soldiers in Lebanon and at northern Israel over the weekend.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push for a new ceasefire initiative, an Axios reporter said in a post on X, citing an unidentified US official. The US proposed that as a first step, Hezbollah would stop all attacks on Israel and Israel would refrain from escalation in Beirut. 

Israel is not party to the talks between the US and the Islamic Republic and it’s not clear whether it will agree to stop its campaign in Lebanon if the war in Iran is resolved.

On Saturday, Iranian state TV reported the existence of a new draft agreement, which it said gives the Islamic Republic “exclusive authority to determine the nature of transiting vessels” in Hormuz, a negotiating point the US is unlikely to accept. 

The draft also said the US has committed to giving Iran access to US$12 billion in frozen funds within 60 days, to be sent directly to Iranian banks without restrictions, according to Iranian TV. It said the document was “unofficial” and not “finalised”. 

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the report. BLOOMBERG