• US president says Tehran won’t be allowed to have N-weapons
• Iran supreme leader insists ‘new chapter’ unfolding after ‘disgraceful’ US defeat
• Trump receives briefing on plans for fresh military strikes
• Washington exploring coalition to secure shipping routes
• IRGC threatens ‘painful response’ if US resumes attacks

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump and Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Thursday traded sharply contrasting claims over the war, with Trump asserting Tehran was seeking a deal while the latter declared the United States had suffered a “disgraceful defeat”.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump claimed Iran was “dying to make a deal” and insisted that Tehran would not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.

He said Iran’s military capabilities had been severely degraded. “Their navy’s gone, their air force is gone … their drone factories are 82 per cent down, their missile factories are almost 90pc down,” he said. “They want to make a deal.” The US president also linked the conflict with global energy prices, gas prices will “drop like a rock” as soon as the Iran war ends, Reuters reported. “The [price of] gasoline and the oil will go down rapidly once the war’s over,” he said.

Trump also claimed that he was trying to save Iran, reiterating claims that the Iranian government killed thousands of protesters and their economy was a

“disaster”.

“I’m trying to save the country in a way; nobody’s seen anything like it,” he told reporters. “They killed 42,000 innocent … people for protesting.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader declared on Thursday that the United States had suffered a shameful defeat, defiantly rejecting a warning from Trump that an economically punishing US naval blockade could be enforced for months to come.

Oil prices hit a four-year high and then fell back slightly, before Mojtaba Khamenei issued a written statement that was read out on state television declaring that Iran was now in the driver’s seat in the crisis.

“Today, two months after the largest military deployment and aggression by the world’s bullies in the region, and the United States’ disgraceful defeat in its plans, a new chapter is unfolding for the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” he said, hailing Iran’s control over shipping in the strait.

He said Tehran would eliminate “the enemies’ abuses of the waterway” under the new management of the strait. “Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometres away... have no place there except at the bottom of its waters,” he said. Khamenei was wounded in the initial US-Israeli strikes that killed his father Ali Khamenei, and has not been seen in public since being named his successor as supreme leader last month.

The United States imposed a blockade on Iran’s ports two weeks ago, while Tehran has maintained its stranglehold over the strategic Strait of Hormuz since the start of the Middle East war in February.

“Any attempt to impose a maritime blockade or restrictions is contrary to international law... and is doomed to fail,” Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said, in a statement that warned the blockade that began on April 13 would be “a disruption to lasting stability in the Persian Gulf”. And Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has emerged as an influential figure, said control of Hormuz would allow Tehran to “provide itself and its neighbours with the precious blessing of a future free from American presence and interference”.

‘Long, painful strikes’

Trump was also slated to receive a briefing on Thursday on plans for a series of fresh military strikes on Iran to compel it to negotiate an end to the conflict, a US official told Reuters. Such options have long been part of US planning but the proposed briefing from Head of US Central Command Admiral Brad Cooper — first reported by news site Axios late on Wednesday — spurred big gains in oil prices.

A senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official said that any US attack on Iran, even if limited, will usher in “long and painful strikes” on US regional positions.

“We’ve seen what happened to your regional bases, we will see the same thing happen to your warships,” Aerospace Force Commander Majid Mousavi was quoted by Iranian media as saying.

Another plan to be shared with Trump involves using ground forces to take over part of the Strait of Hormuz to reopen it to commercial shipping, Axios said. Trump is also considering extending the US blockade on Iran or declaring a unilateral victory, officials have said.

In a sign that the US was also envisaging a scenario where hostilities cease, the State Department cable invited partner countries to join a new coalition called the Maritime Freedom Construct (MFC) to enable ships to navigate the strait.

“The MFC constitutes a critical first step in the establishment of a post-conflict maritime security architecture for the Middle East,” said the cable, which was due to be delivered orally to partner nations by May 1.

France, Britain and other countries have held talks on contributing to such a coalition but said they were willing to help open the Strait only when the conflict ends.

The US State Department cable also instructed diplomats not to discuss the matter with “US adversaries, including Russia, China, Belarus, and Cuba.”

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2026