President Trump’s national security team is divided over whether to accept a new Iranian proposal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the United States ending its naval blockade of Iranian ports, with former national security adviser John Bolton urging the administration to reject the offer and press for regime change while Tehran is at its weakest point in decades.
Iran conveyed the proposal to Washington through Pakistani intermediaries, with Tehran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi having shuttled between Islamabad, Muscat and Moscow over the weekend before the terms were formally transmitted to American officials.
The central element of the offer is a sequenced arrangement under which the strait would reopen to all international shipping traffic and the US naval blockade would be lifted first, with discussions about Iran’s nuclear programme deferred to a later stage of negotiations once hostilities had wound down.
The Strait of Hormuz closure, which has been in effect since the US and Israel launched military operations against Iran on 28 February, has sent global energy prices sharply higher. Oil prices remain elevated, and jet fuel costs have added as much as 20 percent to the price of airline tickets globally. Consumer petrol prices in the United States have retreated from their peaks but remain above pre-war levels.
The White House received the proposal but signalled deep scepticism. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the administration would not negotiate through the press and that the president’s red lines with respect to Iran had been made very clear, adding that she would not characterise the situation as the government actively considering the offer.
Trump himself posted on Truth Social that Iran had informed the US it was in a state of collapse and that Iranian officials were urgently requesting the Hormuz strait be reopened as they tried to stabilise their leadership situation, a characterisation that Bolton used to reinforce his case for maintaining pressure.
Bolton, appearing on Elizabeth Vargas Reports, argued the Iranian proposal demonstrated exactly the kind of vulnerability that should prompt Washington to intensify its campaign rather than offer relief. He described the Iranian economy as a wreck even before the conflict began and said the two months of sustained military action had had a very substantial impact on institutions of state power, including the Revolutionary Guard.
Bolton said he believed the regime was disrupted at the top and described the Iranian leadership’s inability to present coherent negotiating positions as evidence of genuine internal disarray. He warned that accepting the proposal and easing the blockade would hand Tehran a mechanism it could exploit indefinitely.
“If we don’t do it now, they will turn the Strait of Hormuz on and off like a light switch,” Bolton said.
Iran’s proposal also carries a significant structural problem for the Trump administration from a strategic standpoint. Lifting the blockade and formally ending the military campaign before resolving the nuclear file would remove the primary leverage Washington holds in any subsequent talks, since the two core objectives the US entered the conflict to achieve, namely suspending Iranian uranium enrichment for at least a decade and removing enriched uranium stockpiles from the country, would remain unaddressed.
Analyst Negar Mortazavi of the Center for International Policy described the Iranian offer as reasonable given that the Strait of Hormuz closure had created a global economic crisis, noting that neither side could move without the other taking the first step. She suggested reopening the strait could serve as a constructive first step toward a more permanent ceasefire before the two sides tackled the nuclear question separately.
The war passed its 60 day mark this week with negotiations in a fragile state. Trump was expected to chair a Situation Room meeting on Iran with his national security and foreign policy team to assess the diplomatic stalemate and consider next steps.
