Trump Says Iran Deal 'Largely Negotiated,' Strait of Hormuz to Reopen

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that a sweeping agreement to end the war with Iran, lift the United States blockade of Iranian ports and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping has been 'largely negotiated,' raising the prospect that the most disruptive Middle East conflict in a generation could be wound down within weeks. Iranian officials confirmed the contours of a draft accord but disputed several of the president's central claims, signaling that the deal that Mr. Trump described as nearly done still has significant ground to cover.

Speaking on social media from Islamabad, where he had spent the day in back-to-back consultations with regional leaders, the president said that 'final aspects and details of the Deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly,' describing the emerging framework as a 'Memorandum of Understanding pertaining to PEACE.' His announcement followed a flurry of calls with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain and Israel.

What Trump said in Islamabad

The president offered no timetable beyond 'shortly,' but Secretary of State Marco Rubio, traveling with the delegation, told reporters that 'there's been some progress made' and that 'there may be news later today.' Officials briefed on the talks said the document under discussion is a one-page, 14-point memorandum being shuttled between Tehran and Washington by the president's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, both directly and through Omani and Pakistani mediators.

According to people familiar with the draft, the memorandum would formally declare an end to the war that began with the Feb. 28 strikes on Tehran, open a 30-day window for negotiating a comprehensive nuclear accord, gradually ease restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and unwind the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports that Mr. Trump imposed on April 13. In exchange, Iran would commit to never pursuing nuclear weapons, accept enhanced inspections by U.N. monitors and, in a significant concession, potentially ship its stockpile of highly enriched uranium out of the country.

Why the Strait of Hormuz matters

The 21-mile-wide waterway separating Iran from Oman is the single most important chokepoint in the global energy trade. In peacetime it carries roughly 20 percent of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas, with some estimates putting seaborne crude flows even higher. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shut the strait in early March after U.S. and Israeli airstrikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, then formally barred all vessels bound to or from American, Israeli and allied ports on March 27.

The economic shock was immediate and historic. The International Energy Agency described the disruption as the largest in the history of the oil market, eclipsing the shocks of the 1970s.

• Tanker traffic through the strait fell by about 70 percent within days.
• More than 150 ships anchored offshore rather than risk transit, with roughly 2,000 vessels and 20,000 mariners stranded inside the Persian Gulf by mid-April.
• Brent crude crossed $100 a barrel on March 8 for the first time in four years and peaked at $126; Dubai crude touched a record $166 on March 19.
• Regional oil exports collapsed from roughly 25 million barrels a day to about 10 million.

War-risk insurance has soared in tandem. Premiums that ran about 0.25 percent of hull value before the conflict now range between 1 and 5 percent, meaning a $100 million tanker can pay as much as $5 million to make a single voyage. Pentagon planners have warned that even after a political settlement, fully clearing mines and unexploded ordnance from the strait could take six months.

Tehran's response

Iranian officials confirmed that a draft was on the table but pushed back hard against the president's framing. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran that any text would amount to a 'framework agreement' requiring a further 30 to 60 days of detailed negotiations, and insisted that the nuclear file was not part of the current round. 'Our focus at this stage is on ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon,' Mr. Baghaei said, adding that the lifting of U.S. sanctions 'has explicitly been included in the text and remains our fixed position.'

The semi-official Fars news agency, considered close to the Revolutionary Guards, went further, reporting that the latest version of the proposal exchanged between the two governments leaves 'Hormuz under Iran's management' and calling Mr. Trump's characterization of an open strait 'inconsistent with reality.' Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have both publicly endorsed continued talks but have repeatedly rejected any framework that limits Iran's sovereign right to manage its own waters.

The sticking points that remain

Even officials who describe the parties as closer than at any point since the war began acknowledge that the hardest questions are unresolved.

Uranium enrichment

The duration of a moratorium on enrichment is the central nuclear question. Iran initially proposed five years; the United States demanded twenty. Three sources briefed on the negotiations said the likely landing point is between 12 and 15 years, after which Iran could resume enrichment only to the 3.67 percent purity allowed under the original 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Any violation, under the current draft, would automatically extend the freeze.

The blockade and the strait

Tehran wants the U.S. naval cordon around its ports lifted before it formally reopens Hormuz; Washington wants the reverse sequence. American officials say the memorandum envisions simultaneous, phased de-escalation across the 30-day window, but the mechanics remain contested.

Sanctions and frozen funds

Iran is demanding the staged lifting of U.S. secondary sanctions and the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets held in banks from Doha to Seoul. American negotiators have signaled openness to gradual relief tied to verified compliance.

What allies are watching

European and Gulf partners have stayed publicly cautious. The United Kingdom, which in late April hosted a 50-nation conference in London on reopening the strait and this month dispatched Royal Navy warships, fighter aircraft and drones to a multinational shipping protection mission, has said any agreement must include robust verification on the nuclear file. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, whose economies depend on the strait, have privately encouraged the talks but want guarantees against renewed Iranian interference. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to U.S. officials, received Mr. Trump's call 'very well,' though Jerusalem has not commented publicly on the draft text.

Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has emerged as a key back-channel, leveraging Islamabad's ties to both Tehran and Riyadh. The April round of talks in Islamabad collapsed, prompting Mr. Trump to order the blockade; this weekend's meetings in the same city were intended to relaunch them.

What happens next

If the memorandum is signed in the coming days, it would mark the formal end of a three-month war that has reshaped energy markets, displaced thousands of mariners and tested the limits of American naval power in the Gulf. Even then, the harder work, agreeing the length of an enrichment freeze, sequencing the lifting of sanctions and the blockade, and restoring confidence in a waterway still studded with mines, will play out over months, not weeks. For now, oil traders, shipping insurers and capitals from London to Riyadh are reading every word out of Tehran and Washington for signs that the largest disruption in the modern history of the oil market may finally be drawing to a close.