President Donald Trump appears to be shifting Vice President JD Vance away from efforts to negotiate a peace agreement with Iran, instead directing him to focus on domestic issues in the United States. The move has been interpreted by The New York Times as an informal suspension of Vance’s involvement in the negotiations, while Politico describes it as Trump pulling his vice president out of the Iran talks.
Trump made his position clear in a social media post, declaring that Washington no longer needed an agreement with Tehran.
His remarks mark a change in direction after Vance had been given a central role in the administration’s diplomatic efforts with Iran. Earlier this year, Trump personally assigned the vice president to lead negotiations with Tehran, placing him at the head of the American delegation.
“We don’t need a deal with Iran,” the president wrote. “Those days are long gone,” he continued.
“I have asked Vice President Vance to focus his full and absolute attention on the massive corruption and crime that is occurring in Democratic-run cities and states in the United States.” Trump wrote in the same post.
The decision comes after Vance publicly questioned the political cost of the war with Iran, linking the conflict to the Republican Party’s heavy losses in the midterm elections.
“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance wrote in a social media post, directly connecting the election results to the conflict.
“If you want to argue that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then go ahead.” he added.
Trump was asked about the vice president’s remarks at the time and said he was not bothered by them, despite acknowledging that others in the administration had taken issue with Vance’s comments.
“A lot of people didn’t like his comments,” the president told reporters. “But I didn’t.”
Earlier this year, Trump appointed him to lead negotiations with Tehran. In April, Vance traveled to Pakistan, where he held lengthy discussions with Iranian representatives and senior officials. Despite the marathon meeting, the two sides failed to reach an agreement.
More recently, the vice president had reportedly been working to reopen diplomatic channels with Iranian officials. According to reports, he contacted senior Iranian political and military figure Mohsen Rezaei through intermediaries from Qatar, proposing an immediate meeting between representatives of Washington and Tehran.
