Trump Claims Strait of Hormuz will be
“Permanently Toll-Free” under Iran Agreement
In a call to The New
York Times, President Trump praised Russia’s and China’s leaders and described
Israel’s prime minister as “a very difficult guy.”
·
US
President Donald Trump claimed that a new agreement with Iran would eventually
make the Strait
of Hormuz permanently toll-free.
·
He
described the agreement as a major step toward regional stability and economic
security.
·
Trump
said the US naval blockade and military pressure on Iran led to the agreement.
·
Current
memorandum reportedly suspends toll-related measures for 60 days while further
negotiations continue.
·
Formal
US-Iran nuclear talks are expected to begin in Switzerland.
·
Key
issues under discussion include:
o
Uranium
enrichment limits
o
Nuclear
inspections
o
Removal
or dilution of enriched uranium stockpiles
o
Long-term
nuclear restrictions
·
Trump
stated that if Iran fails to reach a final accord, the US could resume military
strikes.
·
He
also suggested a future security arrangement in which the US could act as a
regional security guarantor.
·
Trump
described Benjamin Netanyahu as “a very difficult guy.”
·
Claimed
that US actions prevented Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and protected
Israel’s security.
·
Trump
praised Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin for not interfering during the crisis.
·
Said
their actions helped avoid a wider confrontation.
·
Trump
argued that the new agreement would be stronger than the 2015 Iran nuclear
deal.
·
Claimed
it would permanently prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
·
Critics
note that several key details remain under negotiation.
·
Trump
indicated that the agreement would include rapid inspection mechanisms.
·
The
US would seek strict monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities.
·
Leaders
of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom welcomed the agreement as an
opportunity to restore regional stability and support the global economy.
·
European
countries urged swift implementation of the final accord.
Trump
presented the Iran understanding as a major diplomatic and strategic success
aimed at securing the Strait of Hormuz, limiting Iran’s nuclear programme, and stabilizing the Middle East. However, many
critical details remain subject to upcoming negotiations, and the final
agreement has yet to be concluded.
[ABS News
Service/15.06.2026]
President Trump said in an interview on Sunday afternoon that
the agreement he had reached with Iran would ultimately assure that the Strait
of Hormuz was “permanently toll-free,” and asserted that, despite the
objections of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, he had saved Israel
from nuclear obliteration.
Mr. Trump also insisted that if Iran failed to reach a final
nuclear accord with the United States — a process that his aides say they
expect will begin on Friday in Switzerland — he would restart military attacks
on Tehran or make the United States “the guardian of the Middle East” in return
for 20 percent of the region’s revenues.
In a 28-minute phone conversation that Mr. Trump initiated from
the White House residence, and a brief follow-up call, the president contended
that his decision to attack Iran in late February, and his subsequent naval
blockade of its ports after Tehran closed the strait, had remade the Middle
East in America’s favor.
Speaking on his 80th birthday, as his family could be heard
gathering in the background for a celebratory dinner, he praised two
authoritarians — Presidents Xi Jinping of China and
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — for aiding in the settlement, or at least not
interfering in the blockade of the Strait.
“He was a total gentleman,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Xi, whom he
visited in China last month. “He didn’t send a tanker, along with 20 destroyers
on each side of it, to try and break up the blockade,’’ an act that would have
put the Chinese and American navies into potential conflict.
But he excoriated Mr. Netanyahu for mounting attacks that nearly
derailed the final agreement.
“He’s a very difficult guy,” Mr. Trump said of the Israeli prime
minister, “and to be honest with you, he should be very thankful to us for
doing this. Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn’t be around for
two hours.”
Mr. Trump’s assertion that the United States would, if
necessary, become a paid police force for the Middle East would be a striking,
if very Trumpian, departure. The president would, in effect, be turning
American protection of the region — and the U.S. nuclear umbrella — into a
mercenary force, there in return for profit. The arrangement would essentially
reject the post-World War II American tradition, in which the United States
used its power to assure global peace and prosperity.
It is not the first time Mr. Trump has suggested such
arrangements in various parts of the world. But pressed on Sunday on whether he
had won the agreement of Gulf states to such an arrangement — including
American allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — he did not
offer a direct answer, suggesting instead that he had just begun to discuss the
issue. It would only happen, he suggested, if Iran remained an adversary.
Mr. Trump described Iran’s current leadership, including the new
supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, as pragmatists. It was a vastly
different tone from the one he took on the opening day of the war, when he
urged the Iranian people to rise up and take over their government once the
American and Israeli bombing was complete. He acknowledged that he had said
that, but went on to note that the Iranian people did not have access to arms —
and would be slaughtered if they tried.
But he insisted that if Iran’s leaders killed protesters, it
would prevent them from getting full sanctions relief and access to $25 billion
in frozen funds. That requirement, however, is apparently nowhere in the
current text of the memorandum of understanding, and it is not clear how
central it would be to the next negotiation.
While the text of the agreement has not yet been published, Mr.
Trump seemed to be describing Iranian concessions that the country has not yet
made, or that have been kicked to the follow-up negotiations. The memorandum of
understanding, for example, suspends tolls in the strait for only 60 days, and
then promises a regional dialogue about the future. Iran had never charged
tolls before the war, so the president is essentially celebrating a return to
the prewar status quo.
Mr. Trump repeatedly compared his new memorandum of
understanding to the 2015 agreement reached between President Barack Obama and
Iran’s leadership, maintaining that his agreement would assure that Iran
“cannot develop or purchase a nuclear weapon.” Iran agreed to that when it
first ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1970, and reaffirmed that
agreement on the first page of the Obama-era accord.
Over the past three months of negotiations, led by the
president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, the
Iranians insisted that they would never give up their right to enrich uranium
under that treaty. Mr. Trump said they were still negotiating over whether Iran
would suspend its enrichment for 20 years. Mr. Trump hinted that he might
settle for a 15-year suspension, but did not want to negotiate via the press.
He also insisted that Iran would be forever limited to enriching
at low levels that “could never be used by the military.”
“They can never go beyond a certain amount,” he said. But when
asked whether that limit was the same as in the Obama-era agreement — which
limited enrichment to 3.67 percent, a level that is usable in power reactors
but not weaponry — he said only that the new accord would assure that “they can
only enrich for nonmilitary purposes. Forever.”
In both of these areas, Mr. Trump appeared to be celebrating
Iranian concessions on issues that will be on the negotiating table in
Switzerland — as they were in February, when Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner were
conducting negotiations nearly until the bombing started on Feb. 28.
But Mr. Trump knows that the details will be compared with what
the Obama administration negotiated, without launching a war that killed
hundreds or thousands of Iranians (and more than a dozen Americans). It is
clearly an issue that Mr. Trump is sensitive about: Just before calling The
Times he posted a criticism of Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, for
suggesting that Mr. Obama got more out of his negotiation than Mr. Trump did.
“We negotiated from strength,” Mr. Trump said. “He was basically
paying them off.”
Mr. Trump insisted, as his aides have, that Iran would receive
no relief from sanctions or release of its frozen financial assets until it
delivered on its commitments.
He maintained that he was in no rush to get the near-bomb-grade
fuel out of its underground sites, where much of it is buried after the United
States dropped bunker-busting bombs on Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, all major
nuclear facilities, a year ago.
He said the United States would, over time, join with Iran in
“down-blending” the enriched nuclear material, which would bring it to
reactor-grade. But he offered no deadline and sounded vague about the timing.
Mr. Trump insisted that it was the missile and bombing attacks
on Iran that had made the difference. “They did not want the third attack,” he
said. “They do care about living.”
“The bottom line is that those attacks that we made had a huge
impact on having this deal made, a huge impact.”
Iran complied with that enrichment limit during Mr. Obama’s time
in office and into Mr. Trump’s first term. But after Mr. Trump terminated the
deal, Tehran’s leader ordered enrichment at far higher levels — including
near-bomb-grade uranium enriched to 60 percent that became the focus of the
deepest concerns. It could be turned quickly into fuel for 10 to 12 nuclear
weapons.
In the interview, Mr. Trump insisted that the United States
would ultimately work with Iran to excavate, down-blend and remove all 12 tons
of enriched nuclear fuel that it possesses. In the Obama deal, 97 percent of
the country’s stockpile was shipped to Russia.
Mr. Trump also suggested that the United States would have what
he called “strong policing powers” to make sure that Iran was not conducting
nuclear work in violation of any of its commitments. He said that the previous
deal allowed inspection demands to stretch out for months, but that the accord
he is striking would provide for near-instant access. Iran has not spoken
publicly about any such agreement.
In the course of the conversation, the president sounded in a
celebratory mood, talking about the Ultimate Fighting Championship event being
held on the South Lawn of the White House on Sunday evening and the possibility
that it could be interrupted by rain. “This happens in wartime,” he said.
Mr. Trump spoke just hours before he was scheduled to leave for
the Group of 7 summit in France, and the announcement is bound to transform the
tenor of the meeting. While American allies almost universally opposed the
American and Israeli attack — and Britain initially triggered Mr. Trump’s ire
by not allowing bombers to participate in the first waves from its bases — the
leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Britain welcomed the new agreement in a
statement.
“This is a moment of opportunity to restore regional stability
and stabilize the global economy,” they wrote. “It is now vital that the
detailed negotiations are concluded and this agreement is implemented rapidly
and comprehensively. We are ready to support that effort.”
In his conversation, Mr. Trump was dismissive of the European
allies’ initial responses, but said he would welcome them to join now, even
while suggesting that it was a little late.