Trump Pulls Vance Off Iran Talks, Says US Needs No Deal
President Donald Trump has told Vice President JD Vance to drop the Iran file, declaring that the United States does not need a deal with Tehran and that his deputy should instead focus on alleged crime and corruption in Democratic-run cities and states.
The instruction, posted on Truth Social on Thursday, ends — at least for now — the diplomatic track Vance had been leading in the eight-month war with Iran, and marks a sharp reversal from Trump’s own recent suggestions that a settlement was close.
“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!” Trump wrote, referring to the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping route at the centre of the conflict.
“Focus his complete and total attention”
Trump said he had asked Vance to focus “his complete and total attention” on “the Massive Corruption and Crime taking place in Democrat run Cities and States”. The post named Minnesota, California and Illinois.
“Our Budget could be quickly BALANCED with the correction of this large-scale criminal activity. CORRUPTION is in the Democrat Leadership’s blood!” Trump wrote on Thursday.
The directive came a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that Vance was considering face-to-face talks with Mohsen Rezaei, the hard-line secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, as part of a fresh push to end the war. Reuters reported that the move followed Vance’s growing role in efforts to resolve the conflict.
The talks Vance had been building
Vance had been leading the administration’s backchannel talks with Tehran, and had written to Rezaei in October requesting a meeting, according to the Journal. No date had been set, and no venue agreed, though Doha in Qatar had emerged as a possible location.
Rezaei, however, pushed back publicly on Tuesday, saying he had no plans to meet Vance and denying that negotiations were under way. “I emphasize that at the present moment, we are not conducting any negotiations with the Americans,” he said, according to Iranian state media. He called reports of a planned meeting “a pure lie”.
Vance had also led talks with Iranian officials in Pakistan, Algemeiner reported, and had become the administration’s main channel to Tehran in recent weeks.
The vice president’s diplomatic role had grown after he blamed the costly war with Iran for the Republicans’ drubbing in last week’s midterm elections, a claim Trump called “largely true” at the time. Reuters reported on Tuesday that Vance favoured reaching an agreement, while Trump doubted one was needed.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday, after talks with US allies in Paris, that Iran’s demands for a potential deal were “absurd”. Rubio said sanctions and the blockade made new strikes unnecessary.
From “imminent” deal to no deal at all
Trump’s post is a striking change of tone from just days ago. On 2 November, he said a settlement could be imminent and that Iran wanted an agreement. On Monday, after talks with Qatar’s prime minister, he called the war “effectively over” from a military standpoint.
In recent weeks Trump had suggested Iran would be more willing to strike a deal after the US elections. But his administration this week signalled that it believes the blockade and economic sanctions against Iran are working, meaning neither a military escalation nor diplomacy is needed, Reuters reported.
Markets reacted quickly. Brent crude briefly touched $94 a barrel on Thursday before easing to about $93.79, up roughly 1.1 per cent on the day, according to OilPrice.com.
What Tehran is demanding
Iran has said it will not return to talks unless the US lifts its naval blockade, releases frozen assets and eases oil sanctions. Rezaei said this week that for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen, Washington must accept seven core Iranian positions, including the lifting of the blockade, the removal of sanctions, reparations for war damage and an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the strait would “never return” to its pre-war status.
For now, no meeting between Vance and Rezaei is scheduled, and no new talks are planned. The blockade remains in place, the war continues, and the diplomatic track that Vance spent weeks building appears to have been closed by a single social media post.
