Washington, May 2 -- US President Donald Trump has said that Iran was "dying to make a deal" to end the now paused war and virtually ruled out resuming air strikes. Trump's remarks during a media interaction at the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon came at a time when Iran threatened fresh strikes if the US resumed the war which has been paused since the warring sides agreed to a ceasefire on April 8. "I don't know that we need it," Trump said to a question on whether he was getting "antsy to break the ceasefire". The US president claimed that the military action had sharply degraded Iran's capabilities. "Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. their drone factories are about 82% down. Their missile production had also been hit. Their missile factories are almost 90% down," he said. "We obliterated that nuclear capacity of theirs," Trump said, adding that the Iranian economy was crashing as a result of the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. They're not getting any money from oil. And hopefully, it can be worked out very soon," he added. "Iran is dying to make a deal," Trump claimed, adding that only a limited group was aware of the status of negotiations. "Nobody knows what the talks are except for myself and a couple of other people," he said. The US president also utilised the occasion to reiterate the claim to have stopped eight wars, including the India-Pakistan war last year, by threatening to levy tariffs on both the countries. "But I settled eight wars. And in every case, the people, the prime ministers or presidents wrote letters thanking me," Trump said. "And in the case of India, the biggest one would have been Pakistan, India. And the prime minister of Pakistan said, I saved 30 to 50 million lives. But it could have been more than that," the US president said. Trump said two nuclear nations were at war and 11 aircraft were shot down. "They were in the first week of what would have been a very bad war. And I got it solved. You know how I got it solved? By the use of tariffs. I said, "I'm going to charge you tariffs if you guys keep fighting," the US president said. Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for stopping the India-Pakistan conflict since May 10 last year, when he announced on social media that the two neighbours had agreed to a "full and immediate" ceasefire after talks mediated by Washington. India has consistently denied any third-party intervention . The Trump administration is arguing that the war in Iran has already ended because of the ceasefire that began in early April, an interpretation that would allow the White House to avoid the need to seek congressional approval. The statement furthers an argument laid out by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth during testimony in the Senate earlier Thursday, when he said the ceasefire effectively paused the war. Under that rationale, the administration has not yet met the requirement mandated by a 1973 law to seek formal approval from Congress for military action that extends beyond 60 days. A senior administration official said for purposes of that law, "the hostilities that began on Saturday, February 28 have terminated." The official said the US military and Iran have not exchanged fire since the two-week ceasefire that began April 7. While the ceasefire has since been extended, Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, and the US Navy is maintaining a blockade to prevent Iran's oil tankers from getting out to sea. Under the War Powers Resolution, the law that sought to constrain a president's military powers, President Donald Trump had until Friday to seek congressional authorisation or cease fighting. The law also allows an administration to extend that deadline by 30 days. Democrats have pushed the administration for formal approval of the Iran war, and the 60-day mark would likely have been a turning point for a swath of Republican lawmakers who backed temporary action against Tehran but insisted on congressional input for something longer. "That deadline is not a suggestion; it is a requirement," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who voted on Thursday in favour of a measure that would end military action in Iran since Congress hadn't given its approval. She added that "further military action against Iran must have a clear mission, achievable goals, and a defined strategy for bringing the conflict to a close". Richard Goldberg, who served as director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction for the National Security Council during Trump's first term, said he has recommended to administration officials that they simply transition to a new operation, which he suggested could be called "Epic Passage", a sequel to Operation Epic Fury. That new mission, he said, "would inherently be a mission of self-defence focused on reopening the strait while reserving the right to offensive action in support of restoring freedom of navigation." "That to me solves it all," added Goldberg, who is now a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank. During testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Hegseth said it was the administration's "understanding" that the 60-day clock was on pause while the two countries were in a ceasefire. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who had asked Hegseth about the timeline, later told reporters that the defence secretary "advanced a very novel argument that I've never heard before" and "certainly has no legal support." Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel at the Brennan Centre's Liberty and National Security Programme and an expert on war powers, said that interpretation would be a "sizeable extension of previous legal gamesmanship" related to the 1973 law. "To be very, very clear and unambiguous, nothing in the text or design of the War Powers Resolution suggests that the 60-day clock can be paused or terminated," she said....