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Why is Iran acting like it is holding all the cards in Hormuz talks?
Story by Damian Paletta • 5h •
4 min read
Good morning. On Tuesday morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on CNBC to say that a deal could be announced later that day to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The stock market jumped markedly.
Alas, there was no deal. Far from it.
And on Saturday, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, laid out the conditions for reopening the Strait. They include the U.S. permanently ending the war, lifting its naval blockade, withdrawing forces, ending all sanctions, freeing Iran’s frozen assets, the payment of war reparations and ending threats and insults, among other things.
“It shows that they believe they have the upper hand, they believe they’re winning, and they are emboldened,” former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” program.
President Trump in February 2025 famously told Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, that he didn’t “have the cards” in talks with Russia.
Trump often looks at negotiations in the frame of a power dynamic: Who has the cards? Who has the leverage?
The U.S. and Israeli militaries have pounded Iran hard for more than five months, destroying much of its military and killing numerous top leaders. Iran is using the Strait of Hormuz as its final point of leverage.
This is somehow proving effective, because there isn’t an easy way to replace this waterway in terms of global trade in the Middle East. Just a few missiles and drones can create a lot of havoc in that waterway. And Iran knows the U.S. has been reticent to send in ground troops to clear out the Strait of Hormuz (not to mention the continuing questions about how many missiles the U.S. military has available).
Related video: Iran demands US concessions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz (Fox Business)
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Trump must decide whether to relaunch military strikes, wait them out or try to negotiate.
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People and Policies I’m Watching
White House counsel: Trump said Will Scharf will become the new White House counsel in September, taking the position ahead of the midterm elections and potential congressional investigations.
Trump’s Monday: The president is to take part in a swearing-in ceremony for Attorney General Todd Blanche at 2 p.m. He is also to participate in an interview at 9:30 a.m. and a policy meeting at 12:30 p.m., to sign an executive order at 2:45 p.m. and to participate in tele-rallies at 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.
What I’m Following
Republicans need to win over voters on the economy. With voters’ negative impressions now hardening, some Republican and independent analysts say Trump and his GOP allies have little time to regain a key asset: their image as the party better suited to handle the economy. For the GOP, the fear is that voters who backed the party in 2024 believing Trump would ease the cost of living will stay home or defect this November. “The set of events that would need to happen to produce a real change in the Republican Party’s fortune is pretty big,” said John Sides, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University.
Benjamin Netanyahu made a rare break with Trump on Gaza. The Israeli prime minister’s rejection of Trump’s peace plan for Gaza is a rare public break with the U.S. leader, who had hailed “a historic agreement” to disarm Hamas. The plan calls for the militant group to lay down arms in tandem with the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave, which the Israeli leader said Sunday couldn’t happen until Hamas was fully disarmed. Netanyahu’s decision risks angering Trump, with whom he has had fractious relations behind the scenes for months,
Joe Biden’s cancer is “painful and it’s very debilitating,” said son Hunter. The former president’s cancer has spread to “his bones and further,” according to Hunter Biden. “It’s very painful and it’s very debilitating in many respects,” he said during an interview with the BBC that aired Friday. “But he’s still out there.” The elder Biden, 83, is preparing to release a book and trying to find his footing in his postpresidency. He recently announced that he plans to release a memoir about his presidency in November, shortly after the 2026 midterms.
What Else Is Happening
In Minnesota, Democrats are blaming each other over the nation’s largest pandemic-era welfare fraud, theft that handed Republicans a potent example of government waste from Democratic mismanagement.Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed is defending his Medicare-for-All plan, the universal healthcare proposal that he acknowledged would most likely come with higher taxes, ahead of his key Senate contest against Republican Mike Rogers.Trump’s hold on Republicans will be tested in the South Carolina primary on Tuesday after his decision to endorse Darline Graham, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, with 10 Republicans sprinting toward the finish line.Secrets from Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s disciplinary purges keep surfacing online, defying a crackdown that has ensnared millions of people—and highlighting how deeply embedded graft and disloyalty remain within the Communist Party.
What I’m Reading
South Carolina Awaits Major Change after Graham’s Death (Washington Times)Meeting Abdul El-Sayed at the Detroit Farmers Market (The Spectator)Primary Night Was Full of Surprises, Close Races—and Madonna (Detroit Free Press)
About Me
I’m Damian Paletta, The Wall Street Journal’s Washington coverage chief. I’ve covered Washington for 22 years as a reporter and editor. I’ve covered the White House, Congress, national security, the federal budget, economics and multiple market meltdowns.
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What the Iran-Oman Hormuz deal means (it’s not good)
Opinion by John Bolton, Washington Examiner • 6h • 4 min read
What the Iran-Oman Hormuz deal means (it’s not good)
Optimism about reaching a diplomatic solution to the Iran crisis is premature. No deal between Iran and Oman has been formally announced, but what we know is not promising. Indeed, allowing the Strait of Hormuz littoral states alone to conduct the negotiations is a fundamental challenge to freedom of the seas, a foundation of U.S. foreign policy. The specifics may be even worse. Under one leaked version of the deal, neither US nor Israeli ships would be allowed to transit the strait, an automatic non-starter for Washington.
Whatever the deal’s actual terms, Iran, on Saturday, unabashedly showed its true colors. Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council issued a list of conditions for opening the strait that is, or certainly should be, utterly unacceptable to the U.S. and its Middle East partners. Even reluctant European NATO allies should see the demands as unacceptable.
Among other things, the regime demands not only that Washington lift its blockade of Iranian maritime commerce, a hugely unwise concession for the U.S. to make, but also lift economic sanctions. Without lifting sanctions, which would be another critical mistake, commercial sources believe that the Iran-Oman agreement alone would be insufficient to induce shippers to resume significant activity through the strait. Trump has repeatedly insisted that ships transiting the strait pay no tolls. Still, talk of “environmental charges” of between 5%-7% of cargo valuations will also increase shippers’ worries.
Why Iran is 'convinced' it has the 'upper hand' against Trump
It is deeply unsatisfying for everybody that is watching this
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That’s just the beginning. Tehran’s Saturday statement insists as well that America withdraw forces deployed near Iran; release frozen Iranian assets; pay war reparations; end attacks on Iran’s terrorist proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthis; and stop threatening Iran itself. To be clear, these are conditions of U.S. surrender, not points for possible negotiation. Such concessions are not only mistaken and deeply harmful for America geo-strategically, but they would also be politically and reputationally catastrophic for Trump himself.
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