In a post on social media, President Trump said that talks between the United States and Iran have been continuing "at a rapid pace," not long after Iranian state media had said the high-stakes negotiations had been suspended. NBC News' Monica Alba and Richard Engel have details on the evolving situation.
Adam Stulberg, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs Chair at Georgia Tech, joined Bloomberg's Balance of Power to discuss the ongoing war in the Middle East. He said oil prices could remain high through the first quarter of 2027 even with a diplomatic deal between the US and Iran today. (Source: Bloomberg)
President Trump announced on Monday that he spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu and Hezbollah leaders to enforce a ceasefire as fighting between the two stalls US negotiations with Iran. As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier, Iran suspended talks with the US amid Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon. The post JUST IN: Trump Says He Spoke With Netanyahu and Hezbollah to End Fighting as Iran Talks Stall appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The warning came as oil markets jolted higher Monday after Iran threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.
'Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel'
President Donald Trump announced Monday that a key obstacle standing in the way of his administration’s negotiations with Tehran to end the U.S. war against Iran had apparently been addressed, potentially clearing the path to an end to the conflict.“I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no Troops going to Beirut, [Lebanon], and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “Likewise, through highly placed Representatives, I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop – That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”Trump’s inability to pressure Israel to halt its bombardment and invasion of Lebanon – which he explicitly demanded in April – has been a key factor in the negotiation stalemate between Washington and Tehran. Iranian officials have demanded that any agreement to end the conflict include Israel halting its bombardment of Lebanon, which since early March has killed more than 3,100 Lebanese and injured nearly 10,000.Whether Israel abides by Trump’s latest request to cease hostilities remains to be seen, with the Middle East nation having flagrantly disregarded the president’s demands in the past.
Iran on Monday suspended all peace talks with the U.S., just hours after President Trump claimed Iran “really wants to make a deal.”Tehran placed the blame on Israel, which it said violated the trifold ceasefire agreement when Israeli troops captured Beaufort Castle, a twelfth-century Crusader fortress in southern Lebanon, over the weekend.Israel previously used the castle, also known as Qalaat al-Shaqif, as a military base during its occupation of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000. The offensive marked Israel’s deepest incursion into Lebanon in more than 26 years. On Monday, Israel issued an evacuation order to residents in southern Beirut.Iranian state media reported that “there will be no dialogue” regarding U.S.-Israel-Iran peace efforts until the “aggressive and brutal operations of the Zionist regime’s army in Gaza and Lebanon” is quelled.Tehran said it would completely close the Strait of Hormuz, as well as another narrow trade route nestled between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula—the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—as a consequence.Trump optimistically insisted on Truth Social late Sunday that Iran was eager to negotiate, and blamed his negotiating woes on Democrats and dissident Republicans. It is unclear what comes next: Trump casually revealed on Saturday that the U.S. would “finish it off militarily” if he did not reach a good deal with Tehran.The president repeated that he’s in “no hurry” to negotiate, and that—despite the war’s monumental impact on global gas prices—he believes if he’s in a hurry he’s “not going to make a good deal.”“And slowly but surely, we’re getting, I think, what we want. And if we don’t get what we want, we’re going to end it a different way,” Trump told his daughter-in-law on Fox News’s My View With Lara Trump.In the same interview, Trump referred to Venezuela as a “one-day win” and said that the situation with Iran is “a win already,” as the U.S. has “essentially defeated their military.”But it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what a “win” in the Middle East looks like when the aims of the war were never clear to begin with. While the Iranian regime has suffered major losses over the span of the conflict—including dozens of senior leaders—it has also become more extreme as a result.Rajan Menon, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, argued in The Guardian late last month that Trump would—at this late stage—be “lucky” to strike a deal similar to former President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Trump ended during his first term.The U.S. has so far been at war with Iran for more than 13 weeks and spent an estimated $98 billion in the process. The regional conflict has damaged strategic alliances, stalled global trade, and thrust the world into an energy crisis due to the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. It has also killed thousands of people.This story has been updated.
