Iran and the United States reached an impasse again Monday over how to end their war while their ceasefire grew increasingly shaky, with the two sides exchanging fire in recent days, ships and Gulf states being targeted, and fighting flaring between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that Iran’s response to his latest proposal was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!”
Also, Trump will travel to Beijing this week for a rescheduled summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. But Beijing’s deep economic ties to Iran, as well as trade tensions over tariff threats stretching back to Trump’s first term, could crimp the meeting, even though the Republican president has for years effusively praised Xi.
Here’s the latest:
Trump says he’ll suspend federal gas tax
Trump answered yes when asked if he would suspend the federal gas tax amid higher prices stemming from the war with Iran.
He said the price of oil and gas would drop “like a rock” as soon as hostilities are over. Asked how long the suspension would last, he said “until it’s appropriate.”
The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Trump says Iran went back on allowing the US to remove its highly enriched uranium
Trump claims that Iran told his administration that it would allow the U.S. to come in and help extract its highly enriched uranium but went back on that in its latest ceasefire proposal.
“They changed their mind because they didn’t put it in the paper,” he said.
Trump added that besides taking the uranium, the U.S. wants Iran to “guarantee no nuclear weapons for a very long period of time and a couple of other minor things, but they just can’t get there. So they agree with us and then they take it back.”
Iran has not publicly agreed to give up its enriched uranium and insists its nuclear program is peaceful.
Trump says Iran ceasefire is on ‘life support’
President Trump on Monday said the Iran ceasefire is on “life support” after he rejected the country’s latest proposal for not including a nuclear concession.
Asked if the ceasefire was still in place, Trump said he’d say it’s “unbelievably weak” and on “life support.”
“I would call it the weakest right now after reading that piece of garbage they sent us,” Trump said during an unrelated appearance in the Oval Office. “I didn’t even finish reading it.”
Democrats vow to fight $1 billion Senate security proposal for White House ballroom
Republicans returning to Washington on Monday are facing questions about a $1 billion Senate security proposal that could help pay for President Trump’s ballroom as Democrats say they’ll try to defeat it.
Senate Republicans added the money for White House security to a spending bill that would restore funding for immigration enforcement agencies Democrats have blocked since February. The steep security proposal was put forward after a man was charged with trying to assassinate Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month.
Republicans are using a partisan budget maneuver to push the spending legislation through Congress without any Democratic votes. But in a letter to colleagues Monday morning, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats will fight it in other ways, including by pushing the Senate parliamentarian to strike the ballroom security money from the budget bill and offering amendments forcing Republicans to vote on it.