Iran’s Demands Leave Trump With Few Good Options

President Donald Trump is stuck.

Iran has made clear that its price for ending hostilities is control over the Strait of Hormuz, a politically unpalatable prospect for the White House. But the ongoing tit-for-tat strikes, threatening to become a wider regional war, is equally untenable.

That’s left a frustrated White House with few good options, five former Trump administration officials told POLITICO.

“Iran wants the political concession of the principle that they get money for passage through the strait,” said a former administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “That will embed their control of the strait in diplomatic practice and customary law.”

Inside the White House, top administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have warned against any resolution that allows Iran to control the strait.

Doing so, they believe, would imperil the United States’ future ability to sanction Iran because multiple countries would need waivers to pay the fees. It would further reduce the international community’s ability to pressure Iran into giving up its nuclear ambitions. And Rubio last week warned it would create a dangerous precedent sure to be duplicated.

That leaves few paths for a short-term solution, with negotiations further complicated by poor communications between factions within the Iranian government.

“The most important thing from a negotiation standpoint is [the Iranians] certainly feel that they have leverage and they feel emboldened, and it’s leading them to refuse to make concessions that are probably in their short-term interest,” said Alex Gray, former National Security Council chief of staff during Trump’s first term. “But they feel that way, and combined with this communication issue that we’re having between elements of the Iranian regime, it’s certainly exacerbating the difficulty of keeping a ceasefire implemented.”

An administration official, granted anonymity to discuss strategy, pointed to the millions of barrels transiting the strait on a daily basis as evidence that Iran does not control the waterway. The official also underscored that soliciting or receiving guarantees of safe passage from Iran is prohibited for U.S. citizens and entities and carries sanctions risks for foreign ones.

“As the President has stated, the Strait of Hormuz is open, and will remain open if people want to go through it,” the official said. “It is closed for Iran, but otherwise it is open.”

The impasse comes with just three months left until the midterms, with gas prices averaging $4.10 per gallon, up from $3.85 one month ago. Many Republicans are eager to put the war behind them and focus on the economic goodies tucked into the GOP’s domestic package that Trump signed into law last summer.

But with U.S. casualties a constant concern, American bases under attack and gulf countries facing a barrage of Iranian missiles that threaten to further raise energy prices, the war looms large over an election cycle focused on cost-of-living concerns. And while Trump insists he isn’t letting politics play a role in his thinking, there’s nothing to suggest an easy off-ramp will surface in the months after the election.

“President Trump faces a series of deeply unattractive choices,” said Danny Citrinowicz,

a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council and an expert on the Middle East. “Any diplomatic agreement will likely require accepting some form of Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz, an outcome many in Washington would find difficult to accept. On the other hand, further military escalation would almost certainly keep oil prices elevated while offering no guarantee that Iran would back down or fundamentally change its strategic calculus. That is the source of today’s frustration.”

And it’s not just the strait at issue. Allowing Iran to charge tolls on the strait or impede navigation could set a precedent for other countries, like China in the waters around Taiwan.

“The U.S. is going to have a very difficult time making concessions on this,” Gray said. “If we start accepting that a party of any kind can just unilaterally impose tolls and fees and close major international water passages in international waters, that is deeply destructive to commercial traffic, to the U.S. Navy’s ability to operate, to the norms of freedom of navigation that have been really in practice for 80 years, that would be a very difficult thing for us to concede.”

Iran, he said, will have to settle for knowing it can close the strait again at any time, a tactical victory that thus far Tehran has not shown a willingness to accept.

Trump on Friday appeared exasperated with Tehran, accusing Iranian officials of negotiating in bad faith and misrepresenting ongoing nuclear talks.

“I’m losing faith in them because they do lie and they do misrepresent,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David. “We just want to win."

On Saturday night, Trump said on Truth Social that he had called off an attack on Iran, “subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL” to open the strait.

“We have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to,” he wrote. “This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.”

Trump has repeatedly insisted that the U.S. has decimated Iranian offensive capabilities, though on Friday he conceded that Tehran has some missiles and drones left in its stockpile.

Meanwhile, ships continue to proceed through the strait, keeping oil prices below $100 per barrel, but Iran and its proxies have over the last few days attacked a U.S. base in Kuwait and energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, and are believed to be behind a cyberattack on municipal water systems in Minnesota.

That the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are growing more aggressive suggests Iran is not looking for a quick end to the conflict, said Greg Priddy, an expert on energy market disruption who worked at the U.S. Energy Information Administration in the George W. Bush administration and is now a senior fellow at the conservative Center for the National Interest. It’s an attempt to weaken Trump’s position, he said.

“This suggests to me that the Iranians actually are feeling kind of confident right now,” Priddy said. “I think this is something that they almost see as delivering a coup de grace that’s going to force Trump to capitulate.”

Trump, however, isn’t likely to find any of the options available to him appealing, argued Elliott Abrams, U.S. special representative for Iran in Trump’s first term. Abrams outlined the choices are “back off and agree to Iran running — and monetizing — the Strait of Hormuz, hit harder and harder until Iran agrees to a real compromise deal, or play for time by continuing the blockade of their ports and the tit-for-tat exchanges.”

He added, “Iran may not accept the continuing low-grade war and blockade” and think that hitting “harder and wider” will make Trump back off.

“That would leave Trump with only two choices: accept an Iranian victory, or escalate and push back harder,” Abrams said. “He doesn't want to do either, so he's left frustrated.”

The president this week appeared almost resigned to the stalemate in which the conflict neither escalates nor de-escalates.

“It’s our turn to hit them,” Trump said Wednesday. But he has so far not made good on his most fearsome threats to decimate civilian infrastructure, including bridges and desalination plants.

James Jeffrey, a former ambassador who served in the Middle East during three presidential administrations, including the first Trump term, said the risk of making good on Trump’s threats is that Iran retaliates with everything it has, putting allies in further jeopardy, depleting the U.S.’s defense missile stockpile and spiking gas prices.

“[The] problem is Iran is fighting close to a total war and will not quit,” he said. “Over time the blockade will cripple Tehran but the key phrase is ‘over time.’”

Meanwhile, all signs point to the U.S. still wanting a negotiated solution, as Qatar and Pakistan continue to push for a return to peace talks after an earlier agreement to cease hostilities fell apart earlier this month.

“I don’t think we’re to the state where we just throw in the towel and say this is just a conflict we’re going to have to manage,” said Fred Fleitz, Trump’s former National Security Council chief of staff and vice chair of the American First Policy Institute’s Center for American Security. “I just think the main message is that Trump is going to make it clear that if you think you’re going to hold out for a deal that’s bad for the U.S. because of the upcoming midterms, think again. It’s not going to happen.”

A person close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking, believes the Trump team has accepted that there is unlikely to be a suitable off-ramp ahead of the November elections.

“It’s factored in,” the person said. “And while not helpful, not electorally determinative.”

Dan Goldberg contributed to this report.