US President Trump claims Iran gave a ‘big present’ related to the Strait of Hormuz, boosting his confidence in ongoing talks to end the conflict.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Iran gave the United States a “very big present” related to the Strait of Hormuz. He described the gift as “oil and gas-related” and significant to the flow of traffic through the strategic waterway.
The announcement came a day after Trump postponed threatened attacks on Iran’s power plants. He stated Washington was in negotiations with unspecified figures in Tehran to end the war, now in its fourth week.
“They did something yesterday that was amazing actually. They gave us a present and the present arrived today,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. He added that the gesture meant “we’re dealing with the right people.”
Trump clarified the gift was not related to Iran’s nuclear program. He repeated his claim that the Iranian side “agreed they will never have a nuclear weapon.”
The US president has not revealed who the United States is negotiating with in Tehran. He said only that it is a “top person” and that “they want to make a deal so badly.”
Former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the joint Israeli-US air campaign. His successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen in public.
Trump asserted that the killing of Khamenei and other top officials meant “we have really regime change.” He said the current leaders are “very different with the ones that we started off with.”
US Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, global envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were all involved in the Iranian talks. Trump did not confirm reports that Witkoff and Kushner were headed to Pakistan for talks with Iran.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif offered to act as a mediator to end the conflict. He said he had spoken with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, promising Islamabad’s help to bring peace.
Trump joked that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “didn’t want it to be settled” because he wanted to keep striking Iranian targets. “We see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well. We negotiate with bombs,” Hegseth said when called to the podium.