Trump keeps Iran conflict on low flame as Tehran sets sweeping conditions for Hormuz reopening

Trump's wait-and-see approach

US President Donald Trump told the news portal Axios on Sunday that Washington is deliberately keeping the conflict with Iran on a low flame, negotiating only half-heartedly. He pointed to Iran's enormous inflation and financial distress, saying the regime is in a "very bad financial state" and cannot even pay its soldiers. Trump had been on the verge of ordering larger military operations just a week earlier, but cancelled what he described as the heaviest wave of attacks on Iran so far. US officials told Axios that Trump is now betting on de-escalation, confronting the regime with its bleak economic reality, for which there is no real solution.

We don't give that much attention. We're only negotiating half-heartedly with them. It will sort itself out. It always sorts itself out. It's like a chess game.

Iran's sweeping demands

On Saturday, Iran's National Security Council tied the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to a list of sweeping preconditions. Tehran demands that the US cease all threats and insults against Iran, permanently end the war against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and Iraq, lift the sea blockade, withdraw all US forces from the region, pay full compensation for war damages, lift all sanctions, and release all frozen Iranian assets. Until recent weeks, these demands had been linked to a nuclear agreement; Tehran now requires them merely as a precondition for opening the strait. The conditions would grant Iran a degree of control over shipping traffic through the strategically vital waterway that it has not held before. Roughly one-fifth of global oil supplies flowed through the strait before the war.

Oil keeps flowing despite blockade

Despite the blockade, approximately eight million barrels of oil per night continue to pass through the southern corridor of the Strait of Hormuz, according to US government sources, in coordination with the US military. Washington aims to push even more oil through the strait while no deal is reached. Trump noted the current oil price of around $75 per barrel. Before the war, which the US and Israel launched before the end of February, shipping through the strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman was largely undisturbed. The waterway also carried liquefied gas and fertilizer. After the war began, Iranian threats and attacks on ships brought traffic nearly to a halt, causing world market prices for oil and gas to jump sharply.

Diplomatic and military landscape

Iran says it is negotiating directly with Oman, on the opposite side of the strait, over rules for ship passages. Both countries declared an agreement was near. Trump has said his government is involved in the negotiations, which Iran denies. The UK Maritime Trade Operations authority reported that the threat level in the strait remains serious, with Iranian Revolutionary Guards continuing to attack merchant vessels and harass shipping.

These actions continue to show Iran's intention to assert its presence along important transit routes and maintain pressure on ships passing through.

Commercial traffic stagnates at a "reduced level." Israeli Iran expert Danny Citrinowicz wrote on X that while Iran's economic situation is undoubtedly poor, economic pressure alone is unlikely to force the country to capitulate or abandon core strategic interests such as its claim to control the Strait of Hormuz.

New security chief in Tehran

Iran's power apparatus has installed a new head of the National Security Council. Mohsen Rezaee, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, becomes the new chairman, as reported by Iranian media. The supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, appointed him.