Trump Says US is Speaking with "Top Person" in Iran (Full Spray)

President Trump ordered the Pentagon to postpone strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days, citing “good and productive” talks with Iran over the past two days. Trump said the US is speaking with a “top person” in Iran, but not the Supreme Leader. President Trump also said the Strait of Hormuz will be open very soon “if this works.” Trump says the strait will be jointly controlled, “maybe by me” and whoever the Ayatollah is. President Donald Trump said the US would postpone strikes against Iran’s energy infrastructure after what he called “productive conversations” with the country, in comments that spurred confusion over the participants in the talks and parameters of a deal.

Trump told reporters on Monday that he was holding off on striking Iranian energy infrastructure for five days, citing “major points of agreement” with Iran. Trump said special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had discussions Sunday into the evening with a “top person” on the Iranian side, claiming both parties were keen to “make a deal” and would talk again Monday by phone.

Trump suggested the US and Iran could jointly control the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway that’s been essentially closed since the start of hostilities, roiling global energy markets. Trump said the strait could be open very soon “if it works.”

Brent crude plunged from $112 a barrel to as low as about $96 a barrel as Trump signaled negotiations were underway even as Iran denied the talks. Prices were trading near $102 a barrel by 10:45 a.m. in New York as the Trump administration races to get oil flows ramped up through the Strait of Hormuz.

US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House on March 20, 2026.

Trump said a “top person” is representing Iran in the discussions but that the individual was not Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

Axios reported Monday that Witkoff was negotiating with Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the Iranian Parliament’s speaker. Ghalibaf in a post on X, however, said no negotiations have been held with the US. Iranian state TV said the US had tried to negotiate with Iran through intermediaries in recent days, but said the country had not responded to those requests.

Trump said the US would give negotiations “a five-day period” and refrain from attacks on energy infrastructure.

“We’ll see how that goes, and if it goes well, we’re going to end up with settling this,” he said. “Otherwise we just keep bombing our little hearts out.”

The chief goal remains stopping Iran from having a nuclear weapon, and under a deal the US would retain the country’s uranium stockpile, Trump added.

Various Middle Eastern countries, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Oman, have been involved in back-channel talks with Iran in the past two weeks to try to contain the war and, ideally, to find a way for the Islamic Republic and the US-Israeli coalition to agree to a ceasefire.

Trump had given Iran until Monday evening in Washington to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or the US and Israel would start bombing the country’s power plants. Iran had vowed to hit energy, information technology and water facilities across the Middle East in response.

Iran also said it would lay mines across the “entire Persian Gulf” in the event of further attacks on its coastline, the country’s National Defense Council said on Monday. Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the conflict, which the US and Israel began with a wave of airstrikes on Feb. 28 that killed former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The blockage to the waterway, a conduit for about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas exports, has seen oil and gas prices surge, with fears growing of an inflation and food crisis.

Iran has retaliated to the ongoing bombardment with strikes on Israel and around the Persian Gulf. At least 4,200 people have been killed in the war to date, more than three quarters of them in the Islamic Republic.

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