President Donald Trump said he is in no hurry to strike a peace deal after Iran reportedly suspended indirect talks over Israel‘s latest strikes in Lebanon.
“I think we’ve been talking too much, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told NBC News on Monday. “I think going silent would be very good, and that could be, that could be for a long time.”
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The president’s comments come after Iranian state media described Israel’s strikes as a violation of the fragile ceasefire with the United States and suggested that Tehran may expand the conflict to “other fronts.”
Trump added that Iran has not yet communicated it is ending peace talks, but suggested he was happy to keep the status quo, including a blockade of Iranian ports, in place. Tasnim, the Iranian regime-aligned news outlet, also reported Iran could close the Bab el Mandeb Strait in response to Israel’s actions.
“We’ll just go silent,” Trump said on Monday. “We’ll keep the blockade. Blockade is a piece of steel.”
The U.S. has imposed a blockade of Iranian ports since April after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, and though the two sides have overseen a delicate truce since April, there continues to be sporadic conflict.
Trump reiterated that his comments did not mean the U.S. would “start dropping bombs all over there,” despite strikes overnight against air defenses and a ground control station near the city of Geruk and on Qeshm Island.
The strikes prompted Iran to launch two ballistic missiles at American soldiers based in Kuwait, specifically members of U.S. Army Central, which the U.S. intercepted.
Trump spent the weekend considering whether to accept the terms of a deal to extend the tenuous ceasefire, but said in the brief telephone call on Monday that he “can wait as long as they want” since Iran is “losing a fortune” more than three months into the war.
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“It’s an appropriate thing to say, because they’re better negotiators than they are fighters,” Trump said of Iran’s negotiating strategy.
“Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the USA and those that are with us,” he posted on Truth Social in the early hours of Monday morning. “But don’t the Dumocrats, and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans, understand that it is MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate, when political hacks keep negatively ‘chirping,’ at levels never seen before, over and over again, 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.”
