The U.S. and Iran labored to reach a peace deal on Tuesday with talks proceeding on shaky ground, as Tehran vowed retaliation for American military strikes on targets in southern Iran.
Even as Iran’s top negotiator spent another day in Qatar hoping to hammer out a deal, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei lashed out over the new strikes, saying U.S. military bases in the Middle East will no longer be safe.
“The hands of time do not turn backward, and the nations and lands of the region will no longer serve as shields for American bases,” he said in a statement to mark the start of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
The statement underscored the fragile nature of the peace talks, which seemed to be nearing a breakthrough in recent days.
Mr. Trump is working with Middle East partners on a draft deal that would extend a ceasefire with Iran and give space for negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a top negotiator, spent Monday and Tuesday in Doha as the Qataris try to facilitate talks and bring stability to the region.
The U.S. side said talks, which began in early April, were moving along but could take a while longer.
“I think there’s strong alignment and agreement on what a preliminary draft should look like,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday, adding it could take “a couple of days” to settle on the wording. “It’s either going to be a good deal or there isn’t going to be one.”
Mr. Trump spent Tuesday out of public view as he took his annual physical at the Walter Reed Military Medical Center.
But he is holding a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday. Mr. Trump typically allows the meetings to be televised.
The Cabinet meeting, which was shifted from Camp David to Washington due to weather concerns, will focus on the war in Iran but is also expected to touch on the economy and the administration’s crackdown on fraud.
U.S. forces struck missile launch sites and other targets in southern Iran on Monday, a move the military described as necessary to protect American troops.
“U.S. forces conducted self-defense strikes in southern Iran today to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces. Targets included missile launch sites and Iranian boats attempting to emplace mines,” CENTCOM spokesman Capt. Timothy Hawkins said in a statement to The Washington Times.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry reacted angrily, saying it would leave “no act of hostility unanswered.”
The back-and-forth marked a sudden ripple in talks. Mr. Trump over the weekend said Iran was being more productive as the sides looked for a way to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and dispose of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, leaving a thornier debate over Tehran’s nuclear program for later.
Mr. Trump also wants countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and to join the Abraham Accords as part of any deal. The accords are a series of pacts normalizing relations between Israel and Arab or Muslim-majority nations in the region, though the demand could complicate negotiations.
Ilan Berman, senior vice president at the American Foreign Policy Council, said Mr. Trump is trying to present the emerging deal in the best possible light and contrast it to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated with Iran by President Obama in 2015. Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. from that deal in 2018.
“He previously called the Obama-era JCPOA the worst agreement ever negotiated, so he is at pains now to draw a distinction between it and his own planned settlement with Iran,” Mr. Berman said. “He’s doing that by, among other things, widening the conversation to include things like regional normalization. The reality, however, is that regional states aren’t likely to sign up for this arrangement now, when they are less secure than they were previously.”
The U.S. and Israel launched the military campaign against Iran on Feb. 28 to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and constrain its missile program and support for Middle East terror proxies.
Mr. Trump is squeezing Iran economically with a blockade of maritime ports.
U.S. consumers, meanwhile, are seeing higher gas prices due to rising oil prices caused by reduced traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. average price of a gallon of gas stood at $4.49 on Tuesday, down from $4.53 a week ago but up 51% from when the war started, according to the AAA motor club.
The Conference Board on Tuesday said its Consumer Confidence Index dipped 0.7 points to 93.1, reversing a series of monthly gains.
“Consumer confidence edged downward in May as the inflationary impacts of the war in the Middle East intensified,” said Dana M. Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board.
The index measures how optimistic people are about their personal finances and the state of the economy. A lower number indicates greater pessimism.
The White House says gas prices will plummet when the war is resolved. It pointed to pent-up oil supplies around the world.
“As soon as the straits are open, then energy prices are going to plummet like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told “Mornings with Maria” on Fox Business on Tuesday. “There’s so much oil sitting in the Gulf, there’s so much excess capacity in Saudi Arabia and [the United Arab Emirates] that prices should drop very, very quickly.”
U.S. stocks were mixed on Tuesday, as investors digested the latest earnings reports and tried to make sense of the murky Iran talks.
Mr. Rubio said Tuesday the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened “one way or another.”
“They need to be open, what’s happening there is unlawful, it’s illegal, it’s unsustainable for the world, it’s unacceptable,” Mr. Rubio told reporters. “I don’t know of any country in the world that does it.”
He said the world agrees with the U.S. in its demand to reopen the strait without tolls.
“The Russians are not in favor of a tolling system, the Chinese are not in favor of a tolling system. I mean, there’s no country in the world that’s in favor of a tolling system, except for the regime in Iran. So that’s not acceptable, that cannot happen,” he said. “The straits need to be open, unimpeded, without tools. And obviously, that needs to happen immediately as soon as anything is agreed to.”
• Ben Wolfgang and Mary McCue Bell contributed to this story.
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