The United States was hopeful that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz would be done “today or tomorrow,” a top US official said Tuesday, hours after yet another cargo ship was hit in the vital waterway.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told broadcaster CNBC, “There is a chance we may have a deal” in the coming hours, a day after President Donald Trump said the strait might reopen on Tuesday.
Speaking from the White House on Monday, the US leader continued his now familiar combination of bullish optimism about diplomacy and bellicose threats, warning that this was Iran’s “last chance before decapitation.”
Tehran and Washington have been at war since February 28, when the US and Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran. Despite a ceasefire and a preliminary deal in the months since, diplomacy has failed to end the conflict.
The Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for global oil and gas supplies, has been the spark for repeated returns to fighting.
Iran wants to maintain control over and charge tolls for the strait, powers it did not exercise before the war and which the US fiercely opposes.
In what has become a regular pattern, Trump last week threatened to hit Iran “very hard”, potentially with attacks against civilian infrastructure, only to pull back on Saturday, saying the “perimeters” of a deal were in place.
On Monday, he said he had agreed to continue to pursue talks with Iran at the request of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and other countries.
But Iran’s foreign ministry denied that negotiations with Washington were taking place, even as Trump insisted they were. “We are talking right now,” the US president said.
Qatar, which has been mediating negotiations, said on Tuesday that diplomatic efforts were ongoing but that there were no direct Iran-US talks planned.
