Former White House national security adviser John Bolton on Thursday called on President Trump to end the U.S. ceasefire with Iran.
“Well, I think it’s a waste of oxygen to negotiate with the Iranians,” Bolton told Bloomberg’s Tyler Kendall. “I don’t think they’re ever going to come up with something that we should find satisfactory.”
Bolton said Trump’s first option is to end the ceasefire, “which has done nothing but benefit Iran” in restarting the production of drones and dig “out a lot of arsenals that had been buried in the first wave of attacks.” But he suggested that Trump will not do this.
“He’s worried about the political ramifications,” Bolton continued. “So, looking at the second option, I think you need to open the Strait of Hormuz with military force, if necessary, to allow oil from the Arab side of the Gulf to come out.”
Reopening the strait could “strengthen the blockade” Trump installed in the waterway to stop Iranian oil shipments, which could “relieve pressure on the international economy,” he said.
“I think you have to force the strait open, get the Arab oil out and that, really, increases the pressure on the regime in Iran to decide whether it’s going to find a way out of the dilemma it’s created,” Bolton added.
Bolton has spoken out against the ceasefire before, having previously told NewsNation’s Chris Stirewalt earlier this month that the U.S. “hasn’t finished the job” by “ousting the regime in Tehran.” Last month, he called the ceasefire a “mistake.”
“The country that benefits from the ceasefire is Iran,” he said on CNN at the time. “They have been getting pounded, and now they’ve had two to three weeks of relief from it, and the prospect of more in store if negotiations get started.”
The fragile stalemate between the U.S. and Iran has dragged on as Trump has repeatedly rejected Tehran’s peace proposals. He has warned Iran that the “clock is ticking,” nearly launching a new series of strikes, until Gulf leaders requested on Monday that he stand down.
On Wednesday, the president said he was “in no hurry” for Iran and the U.S. to reach a deal.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused inflation and energy prices to spike. GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan warned that gas prices could jump next week, following Memorial Day weekend, if a deal is not reached.
The national average for gas reached $4.56 per gallon as of Thursday, which will be the highest average for gas on Memorial Day in four years if it holds, according to AAA. The average is 3 cents higher than last week and $1.38 higher than Memorial Day weekend last year.
The highest-ever price tag for the fuel in the U.S. occurred in June 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Costs at the pump surged to a national average of $5.02 for standard gas.
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