Iran allowed 10 oil tankers to pass through the strategic Strait of Hormuz as a “present” to show it was serious about negotiations to end the war, US President Donald Trump said Thursday.
Referring to cryptic comments earlier this week about a “gift” from Tehran, Trump said Iran allowed eight “big boats of oil” to transit the waterway earlier this week, followed by two others later on.
The White House declined to provide further details about the tankers, which Trump said he believed were flying the Pakistani flag. Trump also did not elaborate on who the “right people” were that the U.S. is talking to.
But its framing as a “present” from Iran to Trump helped bridge the gap between the president’s optimism that a deal could be reached and the reality in the Middle East where Iran, Israel and the United States are still firing barrages of missiles.
That dichotomy ran through the meeting, during which the Cabinet offered its most expansive public defense of the operation yet — while struggling to answer what comes next. While Trump and multiple Cabinet members insisted that Iran was ready to negotiate, the details were sparse and the signals were mixed.
