WASHINGTON/CAIRO/ISLAMABAD — The United States expressed confidence that peace talks with Iran would go ahead in Pakistan and a senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering joining, but significant hurdles and uncertainty remained as the end of a ceasefire approached.

US President Donald J. Trump wants an agreement that would prevent further oil price rises and stock markets shocks but has insisted Iran cannot have the means to develop a nuclear weapon. Tehran hopes to leverage its control of the Strait of Hormuz to strike a deal that averts a restart of the war, eases sanctions but does not impede its nuclear program.

The Iranian official, speaking to Reuters, said Tehran was “positively reviewing” its participation in talks, despite earlier ruling them out, but stressed no decision had been made.

A Pakistani source involved in the discussions said there was momentum for talks to recommence on Wednesday and MR. Trump could attend in person, or virtually, if a deal were to be signed.

“Things are moving forward and the talks are on track for tomorrow,” the source said on Tuesday on the condition of anonymity.

OIL PRICE DOWN ON TALKS OPTIMISM
Oil prices fell and stocks bounced back in early trading in Asia on Tuesday on expectation that US-Iran peace talks will resume this week, after earlier meetings in Islamabad broke down without an agreement. Oil prices had jumped around 6% in Monday trading on doubts over the talks.

Brent crude futures declined 54 cents, or 0.6%, to $94.94 a barrel and US West Texas Intermediate for May fell $1.11, or 1.2%, to $88.50.

But tensions remained high, with Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday condemning the United States for what it called an attack on the Iranian commercial vessel Touska over the weekend, demanding the immediate release of the vessel, its crew and their families.

“Iran would use all its capabilities to defend its national interests and security and protect the rights and dignity of its citizens… the United States would bear full responsibility for any further escalation in the region,” it said, according to Iranian state media.

Maritime security sources said on Monday the vessel was likely to have what Washington deems dual-use items that could be used by the military onboard. The US Central Command said Touska’s crew failed to comply with repeated warnings over a six-hour period and the vessel violated the US blockade.

China, the main buyer of Iranian crude, has expressed concern over the “forced interception.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Monday had said truce violations by Washington were a major obstacle to the diplomatic process, while top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accused Mr. Trump on X of increasing pressure through a blockade of Iran’s ports.

He said Mr. Trump was deluded in seeking to “turn the negotiating table into a table of submission,” adding Iran rejects negotiations under threat.

‘THEY’RE GOING TO NEGOTIATE,’ TRUMP SAYS
Thousands of people have been killed by US-Israeli strikes on Iran and in an Israeli invasion of Lebanon conducted in parallel since the war began on Feb. 28. The war triggered a historic shock to global energy supplies and fears that prolonged conflict could push the global economy to the brink of recession.

The US has maintained its blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran lifted and then soon reimposed its own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which typically handles roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supply. Mediator Pakistan has lobbied for Washington to end its blockade.

Mr. Trump on the John Fredericks Media Network on Monday said Iran would negotiate but reiterated Washington would not allow Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon.

“They’re going to negotiate, and hopefully they’ll make a fair deal, and they’ll build their country back up, but they will not have — when they do it — they will not have a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Trump said.

The United States has not specified when the two-week ceasefire will end. A Pakistani source involved in the talks said it would expire at 8 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, or midnight GMT or 3:30 a.m. Thursday in Iran.

PAKISTAN PREPARING FOR TALKS
Pakistan has been preparing to host the talks despite uncertainty about whether they would go ahead. Nearly 20,000 security personnel have been deployed across Islamabad, officials said.

US Vice-President JD Vance will travel to Pakistan on Tuesday for Iran talks, Axios reported on Monday citing US sources.

A source had earlier told Reuters Mr. Vance was in the United States on Monday, denying reports he was already on his way to Pakistan.

Mr. Trump warned on Sunday that the US would destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran if it rejected his terms, continuing a recent pattern of such threats.

Iran has said that if the United States were to attack its civilian infrastructure, it would strike power stations and desalination plants in its Gulf Arab neighbors.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Fox News’ Hannity program said the United States was close to a deal with Iran.

“Thanks to the success of the military operation and his (Trump’s) hardline negotiating style, we’re on the brink of a deal,” Ms. Leavitt said.

“And if not, the president, as commander in chief, still has a number of options at his disposal that he’s unafraid to use.” — Reuters

WASHINGTON — When President Donald J. Trump returned to office in 2025, he vowed to use tariffs to reset relations with China, which he said was “killing” the United States with its trade policies.

Now, more than a year into his second term, Mr. Trump’s aggressive trade moves have not fundamentally altered Beijing’s trade or military actions. Instead, Washington’s China policy appears adrift, causing confusion among officials and driving contradictory decisions.

The administration’s erratic moves toward Beijing have been on full display in recent months. Those include adding top Chinese companies to a military blacklist only to withdraw the list moments later, and a decision by Mr. Trump to greenlight artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor sales to China within minutes of his government labeling Chinese access to them a national security threat.

As Mr. Trump prepares for his planned May 14-15 visit to China to meet President Xi Jinping, the first such trip by an American president in eight years, critics argue such inconsistencies, coupled with his improvisational dealmaking style, have undermined the US in its competition with Beijing.

“You have departments and agencies acting on their own accord, often with different objectives, and even at times in countervailing ways,” said Ely Ratner, a former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs.

“On any given day, it feels like the policy can zigzag in either direction,” Mr. Ratner said.

Responding to Reuters questions on the administration’s approach to China, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said Mr. Trump’s trade agenda had “flipped the script” on decades of failed policy that hollowed out the US industrial base.

“By leveraging our economy — the biggest and best consumer market in the world — and his great relationship with President Xi, President Trump has empowered America to finally operate from a position of strength in global diplomatic and trade matters,” Mr. Desai said.

NO PLAN B
Mr. Trump launched his second term China policy with a dramatic trade broadside, initially hiking tariffs on Chinese goods to around 145%.

Beijing did not back down, however, and retaliated with tariff increases of its own.

The countries eventually forged an uneasy détente after China, which holds a virtual monopoly on the refining and processing of the world’s rare earths, threatened to choke off supplies of the minerals needed by US industries.

A February ruling by the Supreme Court invalidating many of Mr. Trump’s duties further undercut the administration’s strategy

“Their entire original strategy was centered around using tariffs to pressure China into major concessions. That effort quickly ran aground,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “There has been no coherent Plan B.”

The tariffs did produce at least one result Mr. Trump has sought: the US goods trade deficit with China decreased by 32% to $202 billion in 2025 compared to 2024, US government data show.

But tariffs have not changed Beijing’s mercantilist trade policies, and their fitful use likely reduced industry incentive to reshore manufacturing, a major goal of Mr. Trump’s America First approach. The US lost 91,000 manufacturing jobs from February to December of last year.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who have run China policy instead of hawkish Secretary of State Marco Rubio, appear to have lowered expectations for an overhaul in commercial relations, shifting emphasis to a new “managed trade.”

“Where do we want to be with China? We want relations to be stable. We want our trade to be more balanced. We want it to be in non-sensitive goods,” Mr. Greer said in March.

In the face of Mr. Trump’s turmoil, China has sought to portray itself as the responsible power.

“We… stay committed to acting as a positive and stable force for good,” its foreign ministry said in January when asked if Beijing benefited from the chaotic US approach.

CONFLICTING SIGNALS
The administration’s reversals haven’t just been on tariffs.

In December, Mr. Trump declared on social media that he had approved the controversial sale of advanced Nvidia H200 AI semiconductors to China, the very chips his Justice department only 30 minutes earlier said were being smuggled to China, constituting a threat to national security.

Two US officials told Reuters those conflicting signals left them and others in the government flummoxed.

In February, Mr. Trump’s Pentagon blacklisted top Chinese technology companies for allegedly aiding the Chinese military, only to mysteriously withdraw the list an hour later with little explanation.

In the fall, the Commerce department issued rules to extend export controls to thousands of subsidiaries of Chinese companies, arguing it closed a significant loophole by which foreign companies could access sensitive technology. But the US paused those measures, along with planned US port fees for Chinese-built vessels intended to boost American shipbuilding, in the face of China’s threat to restrict rare earths.

“These contradictions ultimately trace back to President Trump, who makes decisions in the moment, unconstrained by a broader strategy,” said Zack Cooper, who studies US strategy in Asia at the American Enterprise Institute think tank.

‘TAKING PAWNS’
Some of Mr. Trump’s actions have put Beijing on the back foot.

His military operations in Iran and Venezuela have weakened two countries that have been close partners for China as well as significant oil suppliers.

Mr. Trump in December approved $11 billion in weapons sales to Taiwan, a major boost for the democratically governed island China claims as its territory.

He also pressured Panama to dislodge a Hong Kong port operator from around the Panama Canal and blockaded oil from reaching Communist-run Cuba.

“Iran was an extremely powerful signal to the Chinese that the United States continues to have overmatch,” said Alex Gray, a former senior national security official during Mr. Trump’s first term.

But the costly war with Iran has burned through advanced missile stockpiles and redirected US military assets away from Asia. And even the additional support for Taiwan has been tempered by fears that Mr. Trump might barter away US backing for a favorable trade deal from Mr. Xi.

“If this is a chess match, the US is taking pawns off the periphery rather than controlling the center of the board. Beijing doesn’t like it, but it’s an inconvenience rather than a strategic setback,” said Jonathan Czin, a China expert at the Brookings Institution.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s antagonism toward American allies — over the NATO alliance, tariffs and the Iran conflict — may erode the hard-earned consensus on the need to push back against China’s actions on the global stage.

To Beijing, the US approach looks like institutional breakdown, said Wang Dong, a professor at China’s Peking University, adding that China would not be diverted from its strategic course by short-term “gambits.”

“While transactional tactics and coercive signaling persist, they are increasingly overshadowed by deep coordination failures across the US government,” Mr. Wang said. “This inconsistency erodes US credibility.” — Reuters

LONDON — British Prime Minister (PM) Keir Starmer put the blame firmly on foreign ministry officials on Monday over the appointment of a US ambassador, saying they had withheld information about Labor veteran Peter Mandelson that would have halted his employment.

Mr. Starmer, under pressure to resign by political opponents over the scandal, has repeatedly sought to defend his role in the appointment of Mr. Mandelson and turned to parliament to set out his case that he was unaware that foreign ministry officials had been advised not to give security clearance to him.

He again said he regretted appointing Mr. Mandelson, whom he sacked in September after revelations about the depth of his ties to the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The events have prompted questions about the prime minister’s judgment, which resurfaced when the government said last week it had just found out Mr. Mandelson had failed a security vetting process.

On Monday, Mr. Starmer again expressed his anger over not being told by foreign ministry officials that in January 2025 they had disregarded advice and decided to grant Mr. Mandelson what is known as “developed vetting” clearance, a status that allows individuals access to information regarded as top secret.

“It beggars belief that throughout the whole timeline of events, officials in the foreign office saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers in our system in government,” Mr. Starmer told parliament.

“That is not how the vast majority of people in this country expect politics, government or accountability to work.”

STARMER SAID HE WOULD NOT HAVE APPOINTED HIM IF HE HAD KNOWN
An appointment that once was hailed as a stroke of genius for employing a Labor veteran with trade experience who could win over incoming US President Donald J. Trump has turned out to be an ongoing nightmare for Mr. Starmer.

Mr. Trump in a post on Truth Social agreed that the appointment was a “really bad pick.”

“Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom acknowledged that he ‘exercised wrong judgement’ when he chose his Ambassador to Washington. I agree, he was a really bad pick. Plenty of time to recover, however!” he said.

Mr. Starmer said he would not have appointed Mr. Mandelson if he had known the UK Security Vetting unit had advised that he should not gain the necessary clearance and that he had stopped the foreign office from being able to go against such advice in the future.

Mr. Starmer, whose popularity has sunk since he won a landslide majority for Labor at a national election in 2024, had previously told parliament all due process had been followed over Mr. Mandelson.

Earlier, his spokesperson said: “The PM would never knowingly mislead parliament or the public… He clearly did not have this information when he previously spoke to parliament.”

After last week’s revelations that the foreign office had overridden a warning Mr. Mandelson should not be appointed, Mr. Starmer sacked Olly Robbins, Britain’s top foreign ministry official, who the prime minister said had signed off on a statement on Mr. Mandelson clearing the vetting process.

Mr. Robbins has yet to make a formal statement on his sacking, but friends of his have been reported as saying he had followed the usual procedure, which allowed the foreign office to overrule advice from UK Security Vetting.

Opponents have accused Mr. Starmer of lying and incompetence, and said his position is no longer tenable.

Three weeks before local elections in which Labor is expected to suffer heavy losses, the resurgence of the scandal has triggered new questions about Mr. Starmer’s grip on government, although no senior Labor lawmakers have urged him to go.

Kemi Badenoch, leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, accused Mr. Starmer of failing to face up to the consequences of his action.

“It is how you face up to those mistakes that shows the character of a leader,” she told parliament. “Instead of taking responsibility for the decisions he made, the prime minister has thrown his staff, and his officials, under the bus.” — Reuters