Iran says reopening Strait of Hormuz ‘impossible’ if US blockade continues

Bernd Debusmann Jr.
White House reporter

We’ve simply wrapped up a short and repetitive gaggle on the White House with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who got here out to talk to reporters simply outdoors the West Wing.

Multiple reporters tried, in a number of methods, to ask about President Trump’s plans for the ceasefire and when any negotiations may, in actual fact, happen.

Leavitt’s solutions had been brief on particulars, however she clearly sought to make one factor clear: so far as the administration goes, a minimum of publicly, there isn’t a timeline.

She additionally pushed again on reporting from some US shops earlier at the moment that the ceasefire might expire in days, or {that a} second spherical of negotiations is across the nook.

The lack of a timeline is probably going strategic. As we have been reporting, this offers the Trump administration important flexibility to let the blockade and the financial stranglehold on Iran chew, within the hopes that what Leavitt termed “pragmatists” in Iran can provide you with a proposal with out pushback from hardliners.

At the identical time, it permits Trump to keep away from a return to full-scale navy motion that many Americans are weary of, and that would upset already nervous world markets.