President Trump said on Sunday that the US was “low-keying it” with Iran and only “semi-negotiating” with the country, comments that come after a senior Iranian official laid out multiple conditions for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
“We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” Trump told Axios reporter Barak Ravid, comments that were taken as a signal that the US will continue the blockade and economic pressure against Iran but won’t launch a major military escalation.
A day earlier, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said that the conditions for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz include the US ending its threats against Iran, permanently ending the war and the other wars against Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and Yemen, lifting the naval blockade on Iranian ports, and pulling back US forces from the region.
Zolghadr also laid out economic conditions, including the lifting of all sanctions, the unfreezing of Iranian assets, and compensation for the war damages. “The Supreme National Security Council will not retreat from these demands, whether in war or in negotiations,” he said, according to Iran’s Mehr news agency.
Zolghadr’s demands are similar to the conditions Iran has laid out throughout the war for a broader deal with the US. But now Iran is demanding those conditions just to open the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that Tehran sees the US as weakened in the region amid reports of depleting US military stockpiles and after Iran’s military was able to inflict significant damage and casualties in its strikes during the last round of attacks.
Iranian officials have previously said that a deal with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz was close but that it wouldn’t mean the waterway would be fully opened as long as the US continued its aggression against the Islamic Republic, referring to the blockade.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Trump was laying the groundwork to declare victory if the Strait of Hormuz was fully opened and suggested to aides that he would be willing to walk away without a nuclear deal. The report said Iran’s demands have complicated that idea, and the plan now seems to be to continue the status quo for the time being.
