Iran Puts Forward Hormuz Plan, Trump Reportedly Refuses
Iran said Friday it had offered a plan to reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz, but within hours reports indicated President Donald Trump had rejected the proposal, leaving the nearly seven-month standoff between Washington and Tehran at a familiar impasse.
The waterway, central to global oil supply, sits at the heart of the conflict between the two countries. New mediation efforts on the sidelines of this week’s UN gathering of world leaders in New York had briefly offered some hope of progress, after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Tuesday with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff. Araghchi told the UN that Iran had conveyed a concrete seven-day plan to the United States through Qatar, under which the strait could reopen and normal maritime traffic resume within a week if the necessary conditions were met. He said the choice now rests with Washington, adding that Iran does not accept coercion, threats or intimidation, and will not surrender its sovereign rights under pressure.
Within hours of those remarks, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing US officials familiar with the matter, that Trump had rejected the proposal, expressing skepticism that Tehran would follow through on its end and suggesting he sees a renewed bombing campaign as a likely next step. Trump also posted an image to his Truth Social platform showing a map with the Strait of Hormuz circled and labeled “Trump Strait.”
According to earlier media reports, the plan under discussion calls for a seven-day halt to hostilities across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, alongside the release of frozen Iranian assets estimated at more than 12 billion dollars, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil, and an end to the US naval blockade of Iran. Under the proposal, Iran would reopen Hormuz on the seventh day of the truce.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told CBS that the process would begin the moment the US accepts the terms, pointing to an earlier memorandum of understanding signed in Pakistan and saying that if Washington agreed to proceed along those same lines, the situation would return to how it stood before. Hossein Mohebi, a spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, told AFP in an exclusive interview Tuesday that ending hostilities in Yemen was also among Tehran’s demands.
The US and Iran had previously signed a memorandum of understanding in June aimed at ending the war, reopening the strait and launching talks on Iran’s nuclear program, but that agreement collapsed shortly after Iran opened fire on commercial ships in Hormuz it accused of deviating from an approved route. Iran requires vessels to obtain authorization before passing through the strait, citing security and sovereignty concerns, and has regularly targeted ships that don’t comply, while the United States has periodically struck Iranian coastal areas in response.
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