Key Takeaways:
The Trump administration is demanding Iran issue a public statement by Saturday committing to keep the Strait of Hormuz open to all shipping with no tolls, three senior US officials said Friday, after a week of skirmishes that pushed a fragile June ceasefire to the brink of collapse.
"The Iranians told us, 'We screwed up. We made a mistake. Let's keep talking,'" one senior US official said, describing private communications after Iran-fired attacks struck three commercial tankers in the strategic waterway. "What we're demanding is that they issue a public statement that acknowledges all channels of the Strait of Hormuz are open and they're not shooting at ships anymore."
The officials said Iran blamed the attacks on "an errant part of their system," a characterization they said reflected a power struggle between hardliners and pragmatists within the Iranian leadership. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is expected to travel to Oman on Saturday for talks on the crisis, with US officials signaling they expect a statement afterward. "If it's not their position tomorrow, it's not going to be a great day for them," a second official said.
The Strait of Hormuz handles about 21 percent of global oil trade, making any disruption a direct threat to energy markets. Brent crude has already priced in a risk premium after the US launched two rounds of strikes on Iranian sites this week in retaliation for the ship attacks. President Donald Trump declared the June ceasefire "over" during the NATO summit in Turkey but agreed to continue talks at Iran's request. The last time the strait faced a sustained disruption — during the 2019 tanker attacks — oil prices spiked 15 percent over two weeks before stabilizing.
Beyond the shipping dispute, Washington is insisting that any final deal requires Iran to hand over more than 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which US officials refer to as "nuclear dust." "If we don't get the dust, we do not have a deal with Iran," one official said, adding that the US has "a lot of options" — military, economic and diplomatic — if Tehran refuses.
The Treasury Department on Friday imposed sanctions on Iranian banker and businessman Ali Ansari, who is based in Dubai, along with 13 other individuals and entities. The Treasury said Ansari diverted publicly funded wealth into an overseas portfolio of real estate and commercial assets held for the benefit of Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran's new leader, his family and other elites in the regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The sanctions also targeted three Iran-based currency exchange houses, Hong Kong-based CDM Trading Ltd. and UAE-based Naba Alzaki Raw Materials Trading LLC, accused of moving billions of dollars for blacklisted Iranian banks.
The new sanctions could complicate negotiations because Article 9 of the June US-Iran memorandum states that Washington will not impose new sanctions or deploy additional forces in the region. Brett Erickson, managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, said the measures indicated Washington was preparing for the possibility that the existing diplomatic framework would collapse. "Washington is no longer trying to salvage the existing framework," he said. "It's preparing to replace it entirely."
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
