US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that talks with Iran have been taking place over the phone in recent days, after he canceled a trip over the weekend for US negotiators to travel to Pakistan to speak with Iranian officials.

He made the comments hours after rejecting an Iranian proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz and lift Washington’s blockade on Iran while pushing off nuclear talks to a later date. He had insisted that Tehran would have to agree to give up its nuclear ambitions if it wished to bring the war to an end.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared before the US Congress to defend the war and dismiss accusations that the Trump administration had led the US into a “quagmire.” He said the war has so far cost the US $25 billion.

Trump, speaking to Axios on Wednesday, stressed that the US would not lift its blockade of Iranian ports until a nuclear deal is reached.

“They want to settle,” he said. “They don’t want me to keep the blockade. I don’t want to [end the blockade] because I don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon.”

“The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing,” Trump assessed. “They are choking like a stuffed pig. And it is going to be worse for them. They can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Iran’s energy infrastructure is going to “explode soon” if it isn’t able to export oil, the president predicted.

Later, while taking questions in the Oval Office, Trump claimed that Iran had moved closer to Washington’s positions in recent conversations, but said the question was “whether they will go far enough.”

At this moment, there will never be a deal unless they agree that there will be no nuclear weapons,” Trump said.

The president declined to clarify whether the talks that he said were being held remotely were being conducted through mediators, as is assumed to be the case.

He argued, as he has previously done, that it is not necessary for his negotiators to fly all the way to Pakistan, which hosted previous talks, in order to hold discussions that can be conducted over the phone.

Yet despite his assessment that the blockade was doing more to pressure Iran than the roughly six-week bombing campaign launched by Israel and the US on February 28, Axios reported that the president had not entirely ruled out the possibility of returning to fighting.

Three sources with knowledge of the matter told the outlet that US Central Command had prepared a “short and powerful” bombing campaign in order to push Iran to accept US demands.

The strikes would include infrastructure targets, said the officials.

Despite Trump’s remarks and his earlier comments warning Iran that it “better get smart soon,” posted alongside an AI image of himself carrying a weapon in a war zone, saying “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY,” Tehran showed no signs of giving in on Wednesday.

Instead, Iran has pledged to continue disrupting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key pathway for oil and gas shipments, as long as it is threatened, which may mean more Middle East oil supply disruptions from the conflict, which has........

© The Times of Israel