Ali Akbar Velayati, who is also a member of Iran’s Expediency Council, wrote in a post on his X account on Sunday that US President Donald Trump’s “sterile diplomacy” in Beijing and his “empty-handed” return from China reflected a “calculation crisis” in Washington.
Trump visited China earlier this week and held talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to discuss a host of issues, including the war on Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
After the meeting, the US president said he was considering whether to lift US sanctions on Chinese oil companies buying Iranian oil, despite Washington’s illegal blockade against Iran.
Xi did not comment on his meeting with Trump about Iran, but China’s Foreign Ministry criticized the war, saying it “should never have happened, has no reason to continue.”
Velayati also pointed to Abu Dhabi’s anger over reports of a secret visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the UAE, along with “distorted data fabrication” by the Pentagon as other examples of the calculation crisis in the United States.
“In such circumstances, Trump’s threats, inflamed by Tel Aviv’s incitement, amount to ‘entering a strategic trap,’” he wrote.
“Falling into this pit with Israel’s rope carries a heavy price,” Velayati stated. “Soon, Washington will have to search with a lantern for the remnants of its credibility in West Asia.”
The warning comes amid Trump’s escalating war rhetoric against Iran, almost three months after the US and Israel launched a war of aggression against the country that lasted forty days.
A ceasefire was brokered on April 8, followed by inconclusive negotiations in Islamabad, where Iran proposed a ten-point plan seeking US troops’ withdrawal and the lifting of sanctions.
US gas prices have sharply increased and are likely to rise higher as Iran maintains its control on the Strait of Hormuz. Inflation is also picking up quickly, exceeding Americans’ wage gains in April for the first time in three years.
MNA
