Iran sets new terms as Trump seeks a way out through Hormuz

Iran has raised the political price of fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz at a moment when President Donald Trump has been looking to the waterway as a possible path out of the war. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that U.S. officials said Trump had privately considered ending the conflict without a nuclear agreement if Tehran restored full commercial passage through the strait.

The report suggests the administration had been narrowing its definition of success. Nuclear negotiations remained difficult, while a fully open Hormuz offered a concrete and measurable outcome. The waterway is central to global energy trade, and stable traffic would reduce a source of pressure on oil prices and shipping.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council complicated that strategy on Saturday by issuing a broad list of conditions. It said the United States must stop threatening Iran, permanently end the war against Iran and its allies, lift the U.S. naval blockade and withdraw forces from around Iran.

Tehran also demanded full compensation for war damage, the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen Iranian funds. Those demands transform a maritime negotiation into a wider dispute over the tools Washington has used to pressure Iran during the conflict.

The parties are still discussing practical shipping arrangements. The Associated Press reports that Iran and Oman are in the final stages of talks over new maritime routes. Iranian officials, however, have stressed that such routes would not themselves represent a full reopening of the strait. Full access remains tied to conditions communicated through intermediaries.

Traffic has not stopped entirely. Axios reported that a U.S. official estimates about 8 million barrels of oil are leaving the Gulf each day through the southern lane of the strait in coordination with U.S. forces. That level of movement can ease immediate supply pressure, but it still reflects an exceptional security environment rather than normal commercial navigation.

The scale of Hormuz makes even partial restrictions consequential. U.S. Energy Information Administration data show that about 14.6 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum liquids moved through the strait in the first quarter of 2026. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the volume was about 20.7 million barrels per day. EIA has said earlier disruptions contributed to volatile crude prices in the second quarter.

The United States has kept its own pressure in place. Washington reinstated the naval blockade in mid-July, and Trump said later that month that it remained in force. Iran is now demanding that the blockade be removed as a condition for full reopening, placing the two sides in direct conflict over a core U.S. economic tool.

Trump signaled Sunday that he was not rushing toward another major military escalation. In an interview with Axios, he said the United States was “low-keying it” and only “semi-negotiating” with Tehran. He emphasized Iran’s economic problems rather than announcing new strikes.

That position suggests Washington is trying to let financial pressure work. Sanctions, blockade restrictions and war damage give the United States substantial leverage. Iran, however, has a different kind of leverage: its ability to threaten or restrict a waterway whose disruption can affect energy markets around the world.

Gregory Brew, an Iran specialist at Eurasia Group, told the Journal that Iranian officials believe Trump wants to leave the war and is focused on reopening the strait. That perception, he argued, helps explain Tehran’s hard bargaining.

The diplomatic challenge is now whether the maritime issue can be separated from the larger conflict. A technical agreement could increase the number of ships passing through Hormuz and lower the immediate risk of attacks. But Iran’s public position makes clear that it does not regard technical access as the same thing as a political reopening.

For the United States, accepting Iran’s full list would mean giving up or altering important pressure mechanisms. Rejecting it leaves the risk that the strait remains a contested and unstable route. The administration must therefore choose between continuing to wait, trying to negotiate a narrower interim arrangement, or returning to military escalation.

The outcome will matter beyond Washington and Tehran. Shipping companies, oil producers, Asian importers and European consumers all have an interest in predictable passage. The world market does not require a comprehensive U.S.-Iran peace agreement to function, but it does require enough stability for carriers and traders to plan without expecting sudden interruptions.

For now, that stability is incomplete. The strait is moving oil, diplomacy is active and neither side has abandoned talks. But Iran’s new terms have made clear that the full reopening Trump hoped could serve as an exit from the war is itself becoming one of the war’s most difficult negotiations.