Trump says US does not need an Iran deal, tells Vance to turn to US cities

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States has no need for an agreement with Iran, and that he has told Vice President JD Vance to redirect his attention to what Trump described as crime and corruption in cities and states run by the Democratic Party. The Times of Israel reported that Trump made the remarks in a social media post, in which he argued that tackling that alleged wrongdoing could save more money than any arrangement with Tehran.

In the same post, Trump wrote: "We don't need a deal with Iran," adding that the time for such an agreement was long gone. He claimed that Washington holds Iranian money, which he put at hundreds of billions of dollars, and that the US has "got their Strait." Haaretz, drawing on Reuters, characterised this as Trump asserting that the US already controls both Iran's money held abroad and the Strait of Hormuz. Neither report offered independent confirmation of those assertions.

What Trump told Vance to do

A Hebrew translation of the full post, published by the Telegram channel Abu Ali Express, shows Trump saying he had instructed Vance to devote his full attention to corruption and crime in Democratic-controlled areas. The post named Minnesota, California and Illinois among so-called blue states, the term used in American politics for states that tend to vote Democratic, and alleged that billions of dollars are stolen there every month. Trump wrote that the federal budget could be balanced quickly if that activity were stopped, and accused Democratic leaders of being corrupt by nature. These are Trump's own allegations; none of the reports cites evidence for the figures or the claims.

Israeli outlets carried the news within minutes. The political commentator Amit Segal summarised it on Telegram as Trump announcing that no deal with Iran was needed and that he had asked Vance to concentrate on corruption in Democratic cities, while Ynet's alerts channel led with the line about Vance focusing on crime in states governed by Democrats.

Vance's role in the Iran contacts

The instruction matters because Vance has been part of Washington's recent outreach to Iran, according to The Times of Israel. Ynet, the news site of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, reported that Vance's name had come up in recent days as someone who might propose meeting Iranian officials in person. Ynet read Trump's post as pointing his deputy toward the exit from the negotiations, while noting that the president did not say whether he was halting the talks being conducted through mediators.

Ynet also framed the current situation between Washington and Tehran as one of "no war and no peace", and referred to conditions set by Iran, though the material available does not spell those conditions out.

Why the Strait of Hormuz comes up

The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow sea passage between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean. A large share of the region's oil and gas exports passes through it, which makes control of the waterway a central point of leverage in any confrontation with Iran. Trump's reference to "their Strait" is a claim of American control over it; the reports do not describe what that control consists of on the ground.

The Israeli angle

For Israel, which regards Iran as its principal adversary, the direction of US policy toward Tehran is closely watched. On the same day, The Times of Israel's live coverage also carried a separate report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had proposed a US land blockade on Iran during a visit to the White House in July. That report is distinct from Trump's post, and the material does not link the two.

The reports differ in emphasis. Ynet and Segal presented the post as Trump effectively stepping away from a deal, while News.co.il summarised it as Trump saying Washington is not interested in an agreement. Trump's own wording, as quoted in English, says the US does not need one.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports says whether the indirect talks through mediators have formally ended, who if anyone will replace Vance in the Iran contacts, or how Iran, the mediators or the Democratic governors named in the post have responded. Trump's claims about holding Iranian funds and controlling the Strait of Hormuz, and his figures on alleged theft in Democratic states, remain his assertions without supporting detail in the material.