Trump turns down Tehran’s seven-day Hormuz offer as Brent climbs back above $105

Iran’s foreign minister presented a proposal to the United States through mediators on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, announced on Friday 25 September: the Strait of Hormuz would reopen after seven days if Tehran’s conditions were met, and talks on ending the war would follow. Trump rejected it on Saturday morning as he boarded Marine One. “I rejected their deal. They want to make a deal where they open the strait immediately because they’re losing so badly,” he told reporters, according to NBC News, adding: “What they wanted is to immediately open the Hormuz Strait. You know why? Because they’re dying.” To NPR he said, “I like making a deal too… But, I’m not — that deal would not be acceptable.” By Sunday, Tehran’s position, as carried on Al Jazeera’s live page, was that the choice now rests with Washington and that Iran will not soften its terms. The conditions themselves have never been published.

On CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, called the offer “not a serious offer” and said: “The president’s not Bambi’s baby brother. He turned it down.” He urged Washington to “continue doing what we’re doing — the sanctions, the blockade,” and said that “if you’re fair-minded at all, Iran is a sucking chest wound, and the world is safer for it.” Then the concession: “Now there’s just one problem: the strait is at least partially closed, and it’s affected the price of oil.” The market agreed. Trading Economics put Brent at $105.76 a barrel on Monday, up 1.38 per cent on the session and 16.88 per cent over the month, with the benchmark climbing above $106 on concern that restored flows face further delay. Fortune had Brent at $90.55 on 28 August — the same calendar date, one month and roughly seventeen per cent ago.

Assessment: Two things are being merged that should not be. Trump told Fox News on Sunday he has not ruled out strikes before the November midterms; separately, he has said Iran will deal “right after the election” because “they’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election.” The Hill’s line that he is weighing strikes after the midterms is reporting, not a quotation. Kennedy’s admission is the load-bearing sentence of the weekend: a supporter of the blockade conceding the waterway is at least partly shut, against the US military’s public insistence that it is open. Note also that Pezeshkian’s inspector offer, aired Sunday, was recorded on 25 September — it answers nothing Trump said. And Trading Economics prices a contract for difference, not settlement.