Trump told Axios on Sunday he expects "more talks with Iran this week," a day after he rejected Tehran's offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
"They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make," he said. "It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago. They overplayed their hand."
On Saturday, walking to Marine One on his way to a college football game in Tennessee, he put it harder. "I'm rejecting their deal," he told reporters. "They want to make a deal where they open the strait immediately because they're losing so badly." He called the American naval cordon on Iran's ports "the greatest blockade ever in military history. It's a wall of steel." He said 29 ships came out of the strait overnight.
Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, put the offer on the table Friday at the United Nations, passed through Qatar: a "concrete seven-day plan." Iran reopens the strait and restarts nuclear talks by day seven. In return, Trump lifts the naval blockade and waives sanctions on Iran's oil, conditions Araghchi says were already in June's deal. "If the necessary conditions are met, the strait can be reopened, and normal maritime passage restored within seven days," Araghchi said.
Trade the strait for the blockade. That is the whole offer, and it explains both halves of Trump's weekend, along with the price he wants to keep off the pumps before November.
