Trump urges Iran to sign a deal and discusses prolonged blockade
By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON/DUBAI, April 29 (Reuters) - Donald Trump discussed how to mitigate the impact of a possible months-long U.S. blockade of Iran's ports with U.S. oil companies, a White House official said on Wednesday, as the U.S. president urged Tehran to "get smart soon" and sign a deal.
Tuesday's talks with oil executives followed deadlock in efforts to resolve the conflict, which has led the United States to try to squeeze Iran's oil exports with a naval blockade to try to force it to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping.
Trump has said Iran can call if it wants to talk and, in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday before details of the meeting emerged, said Tehran "couldn't get its act together".
Trump and the oil executives "discussed the steps President Trump has taken to alleviate global oil markets and steps we could take to continue the current blockade for months if needed and minimize impact on American consumers," the White House official said.
Oil prices rose more than 6% on Wednesday, with the Brent contract hitting a one-month high, on the prospect ofa lengthy blockade.
The war has cost the U.S.$25 billion so far, a senior Pentagon official said on Wednesday, providing the first official estimate of the military's price tag for the conflict.
Iran has pledged to continue disrupting traffic through the strait as long as it is threatened, which may mean more Middle East oil supply disruptions from the conflict, which has killed thousands and caused global economic upheaval.
Tehran warned on Wednesday of "unprecedented military action" against continued U.S. blockading of Iran-linked vessels. Trump has said Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, while Tehran says its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.
"They don't know how to sign a nonnuclear deal. They'd better get smart soon!" Trump said in the social media post, without explaining what such a deal would entail.
It featured a mock-up image of him in dark glasses and wielding a machinegun with the caption "No more Mr. Nice Guy."
IRAN'S ECONOMY UNDER PRESSURE AS CURRENCY PLUMMETS
Iran wants U.S. acknowledgment of its right to enrich uranium for what it says are peaceful, civilian purposes. It has a stockpile of about 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60%, material that could be used for several nuclear weapons if further enriched.
Iran's parliament speaker and top negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said Trump was trying to divide Iranians and force Iran to surrender through the blockade.
"The solution for confronting the enemy's new conspiracy is only one thing: maintaining unity, which has been the bane of all the enemy's conspiracies," Qalibaf said in an audio message on Telegram.
In a sign of the economic toll the war is taking on Iran's economy, its currency fell to a record low of 1,810,000 rials to the U.S. dollar on Wednesday, the Iranian Students' News Agency said, as demand for foreign currency that built up during six weeks of fighting was now flowing into the open market.
The rial's value has fallen nearly 15% in the last two days alone, ISNA reported.
Inflation for the month from March 20 to April 20 was 65.8%, the central bank said, a trend likely to be exacerbated by the currency's plunge.
IRAN WANTS FORMAL END TO CONFLICT FIRST
Iran's latest offer for resolving the war, suspended since April 8 under a ceasefire agreement, would set aside discussion of its nuclear programme until the conflict is formally ended and shipping issues resolved.However, this did not meet Trump's demand to address the nuclear issue at the outset.
U.S. intelligence agencies, at the request of senior administration officials, are studying how Iran would respond if Trump were to declare a unilateral victory, two U.S. officials and a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Tehran has largely blocked all shipping apart from its own from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global energy supplies, since the U.S. and Israel began airstrikes on Iran on February 28. This month, the U.S. began blockading Iranian ships.
Iran no longer has a single, undisputed clerical arbiter at the pinnacle of power since several senior Iranian political and military figures, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes.
The elevation of Khamenei's wounded son, Mojtaba, to replace him has handed more power to hardline commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iranian officials and analysts say.
Meanwhile, Trump is under domestic pressure to end a war for which he has given shifting rationales to a U.S. public struggling with surging gasoline prices. His approval rating fell to the lowest level of his current term, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, which showed 34% of Americans approve of his performance, down from 36% in the prior survey.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sought to defend the Iran war in fiery remarks to Congress, saying it was not a quagmire and attacking Democratic lawmakers as "feckless" for criticizing the unpopular conflict.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Alexandra Hudson and Keith Weir, Editing by Gareth Jones and Philippa Fletcher)
