Trump redirects Vance from Iran diplomacy as Washington relies on its naval blockade, economic pressure and military containment amid regional tension
President Donald Trump said on November 12 that the United States does not need a negotiated settlement with Iran, and in the same social media post he redirected Vice President JD Vance, who had led U.S. talks with Tehran, toward what Trump called crime and corruption in Democratic-run cities and states. "We don't need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We've got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we've got their Strait!" Trump wrote on Truth Social at 8:07 a.m. EST (UTC-05), referring to the Strait of Hormuz.
The post goes beyond the strategy Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid out two days earlier by setting aside a deal altogether. The emerging approach separates military containment from diplomatic resolution, with Washington sustaining economic and maritime pressure while holding back from renewed major combat. Its durability depends on Iran absorbing economic losses without escalating its regional military response, and events within the next day tested that assumption. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی) claimed it destroyed a U.S. early-warning radar in Bahrain, and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) responded on November 13 that the IRGC had launched two drones toward Bahrain, both of which U.S. forces shot down, with "no injuries or damage."
Neither account of the Bahrain attack has been independently confirmed, and a correspondent at the White House said that neither the U.S. nor the Iranian claims could be verified. Vance's status is also unclear. Trump's post did not mention the negotiations directly or name anyone to take over the diplomatic file, and Vance's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to a November 13 report.
What Vance is stepping back from is a role he has held since April, when Trump chose him as the lead U.S. negotiator to end the war. The conflict began on February 28 with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, and it has killed 23 U.S. service members, according to a November 12 tally. Talks Vance led in Pakistan in April ended without an agreement. A June memorandum of understanding he helped secure later collapsed over differences in how each side understood what had been agreed, particularly on control of the strait.
Vance's role became politically charged after Republicans lost both chambers of Congress in the November 3 midterm elections. "The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night," Vance posted on X on November 4. Days before the election he had reached out to Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, in a bid to restart talks, it was reported.
Trump had publicly brushed aside Vance's election verdict earlier in the week. "A lot of people didn't like his comments, but not me," the president said. Involvement in the Iran talks had added to Vance's limited foreign policy portfolio, but close ties to an unpopular war could hurt him if he runs for president in 2028, in the assessment of a White House correspondent.
The November 12 post also reversed Trump's own forecasts before the vote. Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in September, he predicted that "we'll make a deal right after the election because it doesn't make sense for them not to." After meeting Qatar's prime minister at the White House on November 9, he wrote that Gulf states "would prefer the status quo, in other words, a continuation of the Greatest Naval Blockade in History." "Iran, militarily, is effectively over. We're just keeping it the status quo," Trump said.
Rubio supplied the rationale for that status quo at a meeting of Group of Seven foreign ministers in Paris on November 10. He said the "economic campaign" was "so devastating that right now there is no need for major combat operations." Rubio called Iran's conditions for a deal "absurd" but said that could change. "Eventually, you have to eat," he added, arguing that the pressure would have an impact as time goes on.
That economic campaign rests mainly on the U.S. Navy. CENTCOM said on November 11 that U.S. forces were "strictly enforcing the ironclad naval blockade against Iran" while keeping the strait open for commercial shipping. The blockade has cut Iran off from at least $25 billion in revenue so far, according to the U.S. military, as cited in a November 13 assessment from Dubai. CENTCOM has also said that at least 4,000 ships have crossed the waterway with U.S. military help. Those figures measure the blockade's reach; its strategic value depends on whether the pressure changes Iranian policy on maritime access, sanctions and nuclear talks.
The Bahrain episode tested that arrangement within hours of Trump's post. In a statement announced early on November 13, the IRGC said it acted "in response to the enemy's aerial aggression against a telecommunications tower in Sirik," a town on Iran's Hormuz coast, and claimed its aerospace force had destroyed "the American aggressors' early-warning radar on the island of Bahrain." Iran's official news agency had reported an "enemy" strike on Sirik but did not name the attacker or give details of damage. The IRGC statement also stopped short of directly blaming the United States, and CENTCOM's response made no reference to Sirik, according to reporting on both statements.
Even disputed, the claim carries weight because of where it was aimed. Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, and the claim was the first by Iran of an attack on U.S. military assets in a Gulf country since early September, according to wire reporting. A Pentagon inspector general's report released in September found that Iranian attacks damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings at U.S. installations in eight countries, including Bahrain, during the first four months of the war. The IRGC warned that if what it called violations recur, its aerospace force "stands in full readiness to engage without limits."
Shipping in the strait offered a second test. The IRGC's naval force said two supertankers carrying a combined total of more than 4 million barrels of oil were immobilized by a "violent explosion" on the night of November 11 while using a southern route it has declared off-limits. Iran's army said two more tankers caught fire on November 12 after "hitting a naval mine" east of the strait, according to a statement released by state television. Neither statement named the vessels or their nationalities, and the U.S. military had recently said all mines had been cleared from the strait.
Beyond the tanker fires, the U.S. escort effort addresses only part of the disruption. A U.S.-assisted route near Oman's coast has helped Arab states export oil, but it does not restore pre-war flows of liquefied natural gas, fertilizer and aluminum or let Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain use their ports normally, according to the Dubai assessment.
The gap between keeping selected routes open and restoring normal commerce also shows up in the cost of risk. More than 20 vessels, mostly tankers, have been attacked in the strait, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman since October 1, according to UK Maritime Trade Operations reports cited in insurance-market coverage on November 9. Additional war-risk premiums for Gulf tankers have eased to 7% to 9% of hull value, still far above the pre-war rate of about 0.25% estimated by Marcus Baker, global head of marine at the broker Marsh. Even with a protected U.S. corridor in place, Iran's ability to raise that risk gives it leverage over commercial traffic through the strait.
Gulf governments, which bear much of that cost, have nonetheless asked Washington not to escalate. "Saudi Arabia has asked me to please just let it be the way it is now for a while," Trump said at the White House on November 12, adding that Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain preferred the same approach. Asked whether he would have launched further attacks without those requests, he replied: "Yes, I would."
The Gulf preference for a frozen conflict follows economic damage already done. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says Gulf Arab states are in recession because of the war, despite higher oil prices. It estimates that the economies of Kuwait, Qatar and Iraq are contracting by about 16% this year, while Bahrain's is down 11%, according to the November 13 assessment. Anwar Gargash, a senior UAE diplomat, told an audience in Abu Dhabi this week that the region must "prepare for a prolonged period of uncertainty, in which neither a decisive resolution nor a stable regional order can be taken for granted."
Gargash's warning bears directly on the economic plans Gulf governments have built around stability. Iran's strikes and the interruption of Hormuz shipping "pose a serious threat to Gulf business models and the viability of their economic visions," the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) wrote in a strategic dossier on the war. The dossier cited preliminary data showing a decline of at least 50% in announced greenfield foreign investment projects in the region between February 28 and July 1, compared with the same period a year earlier. Gulf governments still rely on their security ties with Washington, but their preference for the current arrangement may reflect a judgment about limiting economic damage more than confidence that the status quo will hold.
Gulf calls for restraint, and Trump's softer rhetoric, have not been matched by a pause in U.S. deployments. The United States is sending a third aircraft carrier with thousands of troops to the region, it was reported on November 13.
On the diplomatic side, Iran's terms remain far from Washington's. Tehran has sent a ceasefire proposal through Qatari mediators with seven conditions, including an end to the naval blockade, the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen funds. "The ball is now in the American court," Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's parliament speaker and lead negotiator, said in an interview on November 11.
The nuclear program is where the two positions diverge most sharply. The United States has refused to accept Iran's demands without first reaching an agreement on the nuclear program, which Tehran wants to negotiate separately, it was reported on November 13. Rezaei has also rejected one idea under discussion, moving Iran's enriched uranium abroad. "We will not remove even a shred of enriched nuclear material from Iran," he told Iranian state television on November 11. That position leaves the two sides furthest apart on the issue Trump has repeatedly called his primary war aim, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Outside analysts describe that impasse as a stalemate that neither Washington nor Tehran has shown it can break on its own terms. Shayan Samii, a U.S.-based national security analyst, said Trump appeared to be pursuing a policy of "neither war nor negotiation" and that sidelining Vance had "put the war file in the hands of" Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow at the IISS, said the war "has made Iran arguably more threatening" and that it is "no longer deterred" by the threat of a U.S. or Israeli assault. Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an associate fellow at Chatham House, described a situation of "no war, no peace" but said "things are likely to shift one way or the other in the next couple of weeks."
The record so far establishes a clear policy statement and an unresolved security picture, with the Bahrain attack disputed and Iran's tanker claims largely unverified. Further CENTCOM statements on attacks against U.S. bases could help clarify the military risk, while Washington's response to Iran's proposal through Qatari mediators would show whether diplomacy has truly been sidelined. The test for the administration is whether it can sustain economic and maritime pressure without triggering a renewed military confrontation. If Iran keeps targeting U.S. installations or commercial shipping, the line between a contained conflict and an escalating one could become hard to hold. The blockade may preserve a degree of control at sea, but it offers no clear path to a political settlement.
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