Vance expects U.S. negotiations with Iran on war will be ‘positive’

Vance spoke to reporters before boarding Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to fly to Pakistan for those talks, set to begin Saturday in Islamabad.

The sitdown comes as a two-week ceasefire that began Tuesday has been threatened by continued Israeli attacks in Lebanon, and by President Donald Trump‘s frustration with Iran continuing to block most shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Strait is the world’s most vital shipping route for oil. Before the war, 20% of the world’s crude was shipped through that passage.

“We’re looking forward to the negotiation,” Vance said Friday. “I think it’s going to be positive.”

“As the president of the United States said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand,” Vance said.

“If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive,” he added. “So we’re trying to have a positive negotiation. The president … gave us some pretty clear guidelines, and we’re going to see.”

But since then, vessel traffic through the strait remains nearly as tightly throttled as it has been since the war began on Feb. 28.

In a Truth Social post on Thursday evening, Trump fumed, “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!”

Iran “is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz,” the president wrote in a follow-up post. “That is not the agreement we have!”