US President Donald Trump spoke with optimism regarding the end of the war with Iran during the signing of an executive order in the White House on Thursday.
“I think it’s going to end pretty soon," he said, adding that "I don’t think they [Iran] can go much longer.”
Regarding the Strait of Hormuz and a rumored deal to reopen the waterway, Trump said that the strait is "sort of open right now."
"You know, we have a thing called the blockade, headed up by the US Navy, and we control it," he said. "But they can always shoot something."
"They always have something or drop a mine," he warned, "and if you have one mine sitting out there, you sort of mess things up because people don’t want to take their billion-dollar boats and accidentally get hit by a mine.”
On Wednesday, the White House refuted reports that Trump and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had argued about a lack of munitions in the wake of the war with Iran.
“We always want more," Trump said. "We have to have more. We have other things, maybe come up, maybe come up, and maybe don't come up. Hopefully, nothing else does come up. But we're in very good shape. We have literally massive amounts of ammunition.”
Trump also reiterated his opposition to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, and said that should it obtain one, "the whole world would be blown up."
"We’re not going to let that happen," he said. "Not only for us, not only for the Middle East, the entire world would have faced a catastrophe. We had no choice.”
US, Iran, Oman reportedly close to reaching a deal
The US, Iran, and Oman were close to reaching a deal this week to open the Strait of Hormuz for a period of 60 days, Axios reported on Wednesday. The White House had aimed for a Wednesday announcement, the report cited officials as saying, though ultimately no announcement was made.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said progress had been made in talks with Iran, adding that the US was "hoping" for an agreement.
Oman and Iran had agreed on terms for the potential deal, MS NOW reported on Thursday citing Middle East diplomats with knowledge of the negotiations.
Leo Feierberg Better contributed to this report.