President-elect Donald Trump is now considering tapping Richard Grenell, his former intelligence chief, to be a special envoy for Iran, according to two people familiar with the transition plans.
“He’s definitely in the running,” said a person familiar with transition deliberations, who asked not to be identified.
No final decisions on either personnel or strategy on Iran have been made official yet by Trump, including whether to slap fresh sanctions on the country, pursue diplomacy or both in order to halt their nuclear programme.
Neither Trump’s team nor Grenell responded to requests for comment.
Trump’s plans for the role have not previously been reported.
But his consideration of a key ally for such a posting sends a signal to the region that the new US president may be open to talks with a country he has previously threatened and whose elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have sought to assassinate him, according to the US government.
Iran has denied the claim.
In the role, Grenell is expected to be tasked with speaking with countries in and beyond the region about the Iran issue as well as taking Tehran’s temperature on possible negotiations, said one of the people.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, who is viewed as relatively moderate, said following Trump’s election that Tehran must “deal with the US” and “manage” relations with its arch-foe.
Iran has suffered a series of strategic setbacks, including Israel’s assault on Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
But tensions remain high more than a year after Hamas attacked southern Israel, launching the onslaught in Gaza.
Meanwhile, other Iranian proxies have attacked US, Israeli and other Western targets, and Tehran has accelerated its nuclear program while limiting the UN nuclear watchdog’s ability to monitor it.
It’s not the first job Trump has considered for Grenell, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany, a special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations, and as acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s 2017-2021 term.
After campaigning for Trump in the lead-up to the November 5 election, he was a top contender to be secretary of state and special envoy for the Ukraine war.
Those jobs went to US Senator Marco Rubio and retired lieutenant general Keith Kellogg, respectively.
Trump takes office next month.
During his first term in office, in 2020, Trump ordered a US air strike that killed Iran’s top military commander Qassem Soleimani.
Trump in 2018 also reneged on a nuclear deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 and re-imposed US economic sanctions on Iran that had been relaxed. The deal had limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, a process that can yield fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Iran now is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 per cent purity, close to the roughly 90pc level that is weapons grade, the UN nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters last week.
Iran says its nuclear program only serves peaceful purposes.
Trump invites China’s Xi Jinping to inauguration: report
In a separate development, Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month, CBS News reported on Wednesday, citing multiple sources.
The invitation to the January 20 inauguration in Washington occurred in early November, shortly after the Nov 5 presidential election, and it was not clear if it had been accepted, CBS reported.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump said in an interview with NBC News conducted on Friday that he “got along with very well” with Xi and that they had “had communication as recently as this week”.
It would be unprecedented for a leader of China, a top US geopolitical rival, to attend a US presidential inauguration.
Trump has named numerous China hawks to key posts in his incoming administration, including Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state.
The president-elect has said he will impose an additional 10pc tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl. He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60pc on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.
In late November, China’s state media warned Trump that his pledge to slap additional tariffs on Chinese goods over fentanyl flows could drag the world’s top two economies into a mutually destructive tariff war.
Separately on Wednesday, China’s US Ambassador Xie Feng read a letter from Xi to a US-China Business Council gala in Washington, in which the Chinese leader said Beijing was prepared to stay in communication with the US.
“We should choose dialogue over confrontation and win-win cooperation over zero-sum games,” Xi said in the letter.
Xie added that the two countries should not decouple supply chains. But Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to Beijing, said in a prerecorded video address that China at times tried to “sugar coat” challenging and competitive relations.
“No amount of happy talk can obscure our profound differences,” Burns said.
