US officials, Vance urge Trump to try diplomacy before strikes on Iran: report

• JD Vance spox denies report pushing diplomacy over Iran strikes.
• Iran says nuclear talks with US ongoing despite rising tensions.
• Iranians use Starlink to bypass nationwide internet blackout.
  

WASHINGTON: Some senior aides in President Donald Trump’s administration, led by Vice President JD Vance, are urging Trump to try diplomacy before strikes against Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing US officials.

The White House was weighing an offer from Tehran to engage in talks regarding its nuclear program as Trump seemed to eye authorising military action against Iran.

A spokesman for Vance said the Journal’s report was not accurate.

“Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio together are presenting a suite of options to the president, ranging from a diplomatic approach to military actions,” said William Martin, Vance’s communications director. “They are presenting those options without bias or favour.”

The development came a day after Tehran said it was keeping communication channels with Washington open as US President Donald Trump considered how to respond to Iran’s tackling of nationwide protests.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran was studying ideas proposed by Washington, though these were “incompatible” with US threats.

“Communications between (US special envoy Steve) Witkoff and me continued before and after the protests and are still ongoing,” he told Al Jazeera.

Adding to threats of military action, Trump late on Monday announced that any country doing business with Iran, a major oil producer, will face a new tariff of 25% on its exports to the US.

“This Order is final and conclusive,” Trump said in a social media post, without providing further detail about the legal authority he would use to impose the tariffs, or whether they would be aimed at all of Iran’s trading partners.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York declined to comment on Trump’s tariff announcement. Iran, already under heavy US sanctions, exports much of its oil to China, with Turkiye, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and India among its other top trading partners.

Meanwhile, some Iranians are still using Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service despite a nationwide communications blackout, three people inside the country said, the latest example of Starlink being used to counter internet shutdowns in geopolitical flashpoints.

But Starlink, which beams its service directly from thousands of low-earth orbit satellites, is still working in some places in Iran, despite being banned by authorities there, three people using Starlink in the country told Reuters. One of them, in Western Iran, said he knew dozens of people using Starlink and that users in border towns and cities were largely unaffected.

Alp Toker, founder of internet monitoring group NetBlocks, said he has heard from people in the region that there is still some Starlink access in Iran, though service appears reduced.

“It is patchy, but still there,” he said.