U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the White House on Monday. Allowing Iran to charge a toll for passage through the Strait of Hormuz and potentially lifting sanctions would both be significant concessions to Tehran, writes Adrian Morrow.Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Donald Trump faced mounting criticism the day after he announced a two-week ceasefire in his war with Iran, as the purpose of the ruinous conflict remained unclear and the U.S. President even floated a number of possible concessions to Tehran.
Iranian media, meanwhile, said the country had again shut down the Strait of Hormuz – a key shipping lane for a fifth of the world’s oil – after Israel continued striking what it said were sites used by Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy militia in Lebanon. Tehran and Islamabad, which helped broker the ceasefire, have insisted the deal also covers Lebanon, while the U.S. and Israel have said it does not.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said reports that Iran had closed the strait were “false” and that the Trump administration had been “privately” reassured the waterway was open. Reopening it to ease oil prices was Mr. Trump’s central ceasefire demand.
Ms. Leavitt also conceded that the fighting might not stop immediately, after several U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf reported missile and drone strikes within hours of the announcement of the ceasefire.
“This is a fragile truce − ceasefires are fragile by nature,” she told a White House briefing Wednesday. “It takes time, sometimes, for these ceasefires to be fully effectuated.”
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The President suggested that the U.S. might endorse Iran charging US$2-million tolls for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and even get in on the action. “We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture,” he said in an interview with ABC. “It’s a way of securing it.”
Mr. Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte met privately at the White House on Wednesday. Ms. Leavitt said the sit-down was an opportunity for Mr. Trump to further discuss his threats to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance after failing to convince other NATO countries to help militarily reopen the strait over the past month.
On Truth Social Mr. Trump said “big money will be made” by the U.S. in helping clear the backlog of ships waiting to get through the strait and by helping Iran rebuild after the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign.
He also confirmed that lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran would be on the table in negotiations toward a longer-lasting peace agreement in Islamabad on Saturday. “We are, and will be, talking Tariff and Sanctions relief with Iran.”
Vice-President JD Vance, along with Mr. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will lead the talks, the White House said Wednesday.
A tenuous ceasefire deal in the Iran war allowing negotiations for a longer-term peace between the United States and Iran appears to be in jeopardy after Tehran accused the Trump administration of major violations.
The Associated Press
Allowing Iran to charge a toll for passage through the waterway – which was open to international shipping before the war – and potentially lifting sanctions would both be significant concessions to Tehran, adding more fuel to criticisms that there had been no point in going to war.
“We lost American lives. We killed innocent civilians, including over a hundred precious little girls, with our bombs. We undermined America’s standing in the world. We spent billions of taxpayer dollars,” Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock said in a statement, referring to an air strike on a girls’ school in Minab, Iran, which the U.S. military has reportedly concluded was hit by an American missile. “How did any of this make us safer? How is America better off?”
Former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a staunch ally of Mr. Trump’s who has become one of his loudest critics on the far right, tweeted a link to an article about the idea of impeaching the President.
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“It didn’t have to be this way!!! But going to war in Iran for Israel and things like driving cost of gas to $4/gallon nationally and the cost of beef higher per pound than minimum wage has consequences,” she wrote.
Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, took to X Wednesday to say that the agreement also includes Iran’s “right to enrichment” of uranium, contrary to the U.S. position and one of the early justifications for launching the war.
Since Mr. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to war on Feb. 28, the President has struggled to articulate a clear reason for it. Early on, he suggested he was seeking the overthrow of the theocratic regime that has run Iran since 1979, before backing away from that goal.
He also said the U.S. had set out to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, despite insisting it had already been “obliterated” by U.S. and Israeli air strikes last year.
Polling has suggested that a little more than a third of Americans support going to war with Iran, a number that could easily drop as the economic consequences mount. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has already pushed average gas prices up about 30 per cent in the U.S. and threatened to drive up the cost of food in the coming weeks and months.