What Is the Status of the U.S.-Iran Peace Talks? Here's What Both Sides Are Saying

President Donald Trump at the start of the Iran war predicted it would last four-to-five weeks, but the conflict is now in its seventh month, with no clear timeline for when the fighting will end.

Active hostilities between Washington and Tehran resumed earlier this month, with oil tankers in and around the Strait of Hormuz coming under fire. Iran is vying to maintain a chokehold over the vital trade route amid the U.S. blockade against its ports. The Strait effectively remains in a military stalemate, bringing renewed regional instability and gravely impacting transit via the waterway, through which around a fifth of global oil production flowed before the war began on Feb. 28. Oil prices last week soared to over $100 a barrel for the first time since July, as the disruption sends energy markets spiraling once more.

The balance of power in the Gulf has come under further strain as Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have made significant advances following weeks of fighting with the Saudi-backed government of Yemen, shattering a four-year informal cease-fire in the country's civil war. The Houthis last week captured the strategic Perim Island, which sits in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, another vital trade route situated between Yemen and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa, that links Asia and Europe via the Red Sea and Suez Canal. This came as they traveled along the Red Sea coastline, aiming to tighten their grip on the critical maritime chokepoint. The disruption has placed further pressure on the global oil market.

The Houthis’ expanding presence in the Red Sea and the potential it has to severely disrupt trade via the Bab el-Mandeb arguably gives Iran leverage in its war with the U.S., experts say. 

“This has the effect of turning up the pressure on the U.S. and its allies who have been relying on alternate routes,” Daniel Benaim, a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Arabian Peninsula, tells TIME. “In a contest of economic wills, the alternate Red Sea has been a very important release valve for the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.”

Diplomatic efforts in the Middle East have faltered. The Gulf states, many of which house U.S. bases that have been targeted by Iranian strikes, on Monday postponed a critical meeting with Tehran on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Despite pressure mounting for a clear way out of the war, meaningful negotiations between the U.S. and Iran also remain stalled. Here’s what each side has said regarding the status of peace talks, and how experts predict Iranian officials could use the Houthis’ disruption in the Red Sea to their benefit.

Trump on Monday said the U.S. is “open” to the concept of restarting negotiations between Washington and Tehran. High-level officials from both sides last convened for official peace talks in Switzerland in June.

“The failing nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly,” he claimed. “I will determine whether or not the U.S.A. will choose to engage—the concept of which we are open to.”

Trump’s remarks stood in stark contrast to the position he laid out on Sept. 2, when he said he was “not trying to force” Iran to the bargaining table. “I couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement. I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing. They are just playing out the inevitable,” he insisted. 

On Sept. 9, Trump assured the American public that the war will likely end “immediately after” the November midterms and said Iran’s government is holding out in hopes of hurting Republican political prospects.

Trump has expressed full confidence in the U.S.’ two-pronged military and economic campaign against Iran, with the latter aiming to choke Tehran off from the global economy through various sanctions.

Ali Vaez, deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, tells TIME that Trump’s diplomatic approach will dictate how successful future negotiations may be.

“President Trump might be interested in getting a deal with Iran, but that's not necessarily a guarantee that he will get a deal. It all depends on what approach he would adopt to diplomacy. If it's maximalist, then it doesn't stand a chance of succeeding,” he says, adding that dealing with Iran requires “a multi-dimensional diplomacy” in order to achieve a “sustainable de-escalation between Iran and the United States.”

Trump has repeatedly insisted that the U.S. has near total control of the vital waterway and that “oil is flowing,” but traffic via the Strait remains disrupted.

Kpler, a commodities data and analytics firm, shared data with TIME that shows that only 10 ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Monday—a significantly lower count than the 138 vessels that typically passed through the waterway during a 24-hour period before the war.

“The United States has shown over time that it has capabilities to move significant amounts of shipping through the Strait, but Iran has innovated,” says Benaim. “Iran and its allies are innovating in their ability to disrupt. So it's a bit of a foot race between U.S. attempts to bypass Iran's restraints and Iran's attempts to enforce its own de facto blockade.”

The Iran war, and its economic impact, has been deeply unpopular with Americans who are facing increasingly high energy costs. Diesel prices last week reached a record $6 per gallon. The war with Iran has cost the U.S. government around $38 billion and contributed to growing inflation, according to newly-published analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. A national UMass Amherst/YouGov poll, conducted from Aug. 21 to 26, found that 68% of Americans view Trump’s handling of the war negatively.

Iran has responded to Trump’s openness to negotiations by doubling down on its demands.

“Don’t get distracted by the U.S. President’s mixed signals—from ‘no negotiations’ to ‘we’re ready to talk,’" said Mohsen Rezaei, Iran's recently-installed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, on Monday. “No talks until Iran’s conditions are met. Period!”

While Rezaei did not directly name any conditions, Iran previously put forward a list of six demands for the U.S. to meet before the Strait of Hormuz would be fully reopened. Rezaei also seemingly pointed to the recent developments in the wider region, arguing that the “stakes around oil and the straits have changed” and warning that “damage control won’t stop what’s coming.”

The remarks from the hard-line national security adviser took an elevated position from that of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who in early September said Tehran was prepared to “reciprocate,” if the U.S. returned to the cease-fire conditions both countries negotiated in June. He was referencing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on June 17, but the pact fell apart, with Washington and Tehran seemingly adopting different interpretations of the language used in the interim agreement.

Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program, says the Iranians are now “negotiating for the sake of negotiating,” arguing that their demands are intended to draw out talks while energy prices continue to rise.

“They can wait. They can afford it. They have no [democratic] parliaments. They don't care about public opinion, as you imagine, and they are not allergic to pain,” he tells TIME.

With the Houthis tightening its grip on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Iran has gained another potential source of leverage, experts say. 

Amid the ongoing disruption to the Strait of Hormuz since the war started, there has been an uptick in the volume of crude oil and petroleum liquids that transit via the Bab el-Mandeb, increasing from 5.6 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 2026 to 8.1 million per day in the second quarter, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Despite the Houthis having claimed that they will not disrupt maritime traffic—except for Saudi Arabian oil tankers—experts tell TIME that the group’s ability to threaten shipping is enough to give Tehran greater leverage in any future round of negotiations.

“The Houthis march to the beat of their own drummer, but these actions certainly help Iran gain leverage by complicating alternative routes out of the Strait of Hormuz,” says Benaim.

In agreement, Al-Muslimi adds “the Iranians now have a new card they can use, and they haven't totally used [it] yet, but they will. It's a matter of time.”

“The Houthis are primarily concerned about advancing their own position within Yemen and globally. In this case, it happens to coincide with the pressure that Iran would like to apply on the United States and the international community,” Benaim adds.

The Bab el-Mandeb, which is Arabic for "Gate of Tears," serves as the southern gateway to the Suez Canal— ships must pass through it to access the canal from the south. If the Houthis were to close the Bab el-Mandeb, it would increase the pressure on the global flow of oil.

Experts say shipping companies, if forced to find an alternative route, could be left to transit around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

The Cape of Good Hope “could be a temporary solution, but it adds to insurance and travel costs, and timelines,” says Vaez. The EIA has estimated that the Cape route adds approximately 15 days to an oil voyage from the Arabian Sea to Europe.

Disturbances in the Bab el-Mandeb are particularly significant for Asian countries, experts say.

Asia has traditionally been Saudi Arabia’s primary export market for crude oil, receiving 75% of Saudi Arabia’s total annual crude oil exports in 2023, according to data from the EIA. China, Japan, South Korea, and India were its top crude oil importers. 

The EIA on Sept. 9 acknowledged the concessions required when using alternative routes, noting that although “Saudi Arabia has increased oil shipments through the Suez Canal at the north end of the Red Sea,” it is “a longer and costlier route for customers in Asia.”

The Suez Canal also has constraints. As detailed by the International Energy Agency (IEA), “large crude carriers (VLCC) can only transit the canal when loaded below their 250,000 tonnes capacity.” As such, tankers following the route must first unload part of their cargo into a pipeline south of the canal and then reload the crude at a port before continuing their voyage, according to Reuters.