Is Trump Actually Having ‘Very Good’ Talks With Tehran?
Our take
In a perplexing twist of diplomatic rhetoric, President Trump recently announced a five-day extension for what he termed “very good and productive” talks with Iran, amid a backdrop of escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz. Just days earlier, he had issued a stark ultimatum: reopen the strait or face severe military repercussions. This sudden shift raises critical questions about the administration's strategic direction and its grasp on the realities of foreign policy. As outlined in our piece, Trump Is Flailing on Iran, the president's approach oscillates between aggressive posturing and fragile overtures for negotiation, highlighting a disconnect between intention and reality in U.S.-Iran relations.
The complexities of the situation deepen when considering the economic implications. The Strait of Hormuz is a critical artery for global oil supply, impacting markets and daily life far beyond the immediate region. Trump's latest comments coincided with a notable drop in oil prices and a rebound in stock markets—an indicator of the intertwined nature of geopolitical stability and economic health. This intertwined relationship is further explored in our article, Why Trump Thinks He Can Walk Away From the Strait of Hormuz, which emphasizes the delicate balance leaders must strike between military aggression and economic stewardship.
However, the underlying narrative is not merely about threats and negotiations; it underscores a pivotal moment for U.S. foreign policy. Trump's administration seems caught between its military ambitions and the necessity of diplomacy, revealing a troubling lack of clear strategy. As Iranian officials categorically deny any ongoing negotiations, asserting that Trump's claims amount to market manipulation, the reality of the conflict appears more ambiguous than ever. This ambiguity has the potential to create a vacuum that could lead to miscalculations and unintended escalation, as both sides grapple with the stakes involved.
Looking forward, the question remains: can the U.S. effectively navigate this treacherous landscape without resorting to further military action? The prospect of renewed talks, albeit tenuous, provides a glimmer of hope amidst the chaos. Yet, a lack of coherent strategy could leave the administration vulnerable to missteps that exacerbate tensions rather than resolve them. As both Trump and Iranian leaders continue to navigate their respective political landscapes, the world watches closely—how they choose to engage in the coming days will be crucial in determining the future of not only U.S.-Iran relations but also global economic stability.
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Early this morning, with Asian markets sharply down and oil tankers idling in the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump offered Iranian leaders a familiar mix of threats but also a reprieve. What had been, only days earlier, a 48-hour ultimatum—reopen the strait or face the destruction of energy infrastructure —softened into something more elastic: a five-day extension for what he described as “very good and productive” talks with Tehran.
The contours of the talks were not immediately clear, though Trump suggested while leaving Palm Beach this morning that both he and “the ayatollah, whoever the ayatollah is” should control the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes. He boasted of “major points of agreement” and assured reporters that Iran, like the United States, wants “very much to make a deal.” Otherwise, he added, “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out.”
It was, by his telling, progress. By Tehran’s account, it was fiction.
The gap between Trump’s claims and Iran’s categorical denials underscores how little control either side has over the conflict—or its narrative. The White House is attempting to manage a large-scale military confrontation with an undefined exit strategy—a confrontation that is unnerving markets. As military strikes fail to reopen the waterway and allies worry about the expanding conflict, the administration is facing the limits of unilateral action.
Three foreign officials with knowledge of the U.S. efforts told us that Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has communicated with the Iranian government through Pakistan and other regional intermediaries in an effort to get the embattled regime to agree to demands regarding its nuclear program and uranium-enrichment efforts. They said that the U.S. presented a 15-point plan—based on the 15-point proposal presented to the Iranian government last year—to give the weakened regime a chance to concede and spare itself further bombardment. These officials, like others we spoke with, did so on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.
Vice President Vance spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today about efforts to restart talks with Iran, a person with knowledge of the discussions told us. Vance, whose long-held isolationist views have put him at odds with some in the administration—including the president—may also take part in talks in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, in the coming days, this person said.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told us in a statement that the situation is fluid and that any “speculation about meetings should not be deemed as final until they are formally announced by the White House.” She added that the administration would not negotiate the conflict “through the press.” Iranian officials insist that there are no negotiations. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the Parliament speaker, dismissed Trump’s claims as market manipulation—they are an attempt, he said, to “escape the quagmire” and to reassure oil traders rattled by the strait’s closure.
The result is a war suspended between escalation and exit, its terms of victory as undefined now as they were at its outset.
Trump’s aides had previously urged him, advisers have told us, not to issue any ultimatums or deadlines that the U.S. would have difficulty enforcing—guidance that he followed for a time, even as his threats toward Tehran grew more belligerent. But the president grew frustrated late last week when Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz and refused to reopen it, even under heavy American and Israeli bombardment.
The strait’s closure sent oil prices soaring and stock markets tumbling, and it unnerved Republicans facing close elections this fall. (Trump has often taken the stock-market indexes to be the most important metric of presidential success.) By Saturday, Trump was seething that NATO allies had refused to help secure the strait—and that he had received criticism and negative news coverage for announcing that he was glad that Robert Mueller had died, two advisers who were aware of the president’s mindset over the weekend told us. That night, Trump issued his 48-hour ultimatum to Iran.
[Read: How much pain is Trump really willing to endure?]
But Iran showed no signs of budging, and some of Trump’s advisers and U.S. allies in the region warned that destroying Iran’s power infrastructure would be a mistake, one of those advisers and two other people familiar with the conversations told us. U.S. allies and experts warned that a strike of that nature might prompt Iran to attack its neighbors with much of its remaining arsenal.
And still, there would be no guarantees that the strait could be swiftly reopened. Allies also cautioned that extensive damage to Iran’s infrastructure might produce a failed state at the war’s end, which could create a refugee crisis and a dangerous breeding ground for terrorism and violence.
Since late last month, when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed much of Iran’s senior leadership, the military campaign has moved quickly (but not smoothly) toward some of the administration’s discernible objectives. American forces have hit missile sites, naval assets, and fortified positions along Iran’s southern coast near the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has said that the bombing of Kharg Island, a centerpiece of Iran’s energy infrastructure, completely destroyed the island’s military sites, though oil facilities were conspicuously untouched.
The strait, effectively closed by threats of Iranian mines, drones, and attacks on ships, has proved more difficult to reopen than to threaten. Shipping traffic has dwindled. Insurance costs have spiked.
Trump is known to pay close attention to financial markets, and he announced the five-day extension just as Wall Street opened this morning. The markets immediately rebounded, and the price of oil fell. The president acknowledged the link to reporters soon after. “The price of oil will drop like a rock as soon as a deal is done,” he said. “I guess it already is today.”
One former administration official told us that even the prospect of resuming talks is enough to give Trump cover to extend his self-imposed deadline. It has also bought the president more time to consider whether he wants to deploy ground troops to the region, perhaps a strike force to seize Kharg Island. Such an operation—pushed vigorously in public and private by allies such as Senator Lindsey Graham—could force Iran to give up control of the strait but would also come at a cost: The fighting would likely be fierce, and Trump has expressed reluctance to risk numerous American casualties.
[Read: The Iran war’s next threat is to food and water ]
Allies, too, have hesitated to turn to force to reopen the strait. European and Indo-Pacific partners—Japan, Australia, and several NATO states—have resisted direct military involvement, instead urging diplomacy or limited escort missions through the strait. The coalition Trump once envisioned has not materialized.
Against this backdrop, the president’s messaging has grown more improvisational. On Truth Social, Trump has alternated between declaring overwhelming victory and calling for other nations to assume responsibility for the strait’s security. His suggestion today that the passage could soon reopen under U.S.–Iranian management lacks confirmation from Tehran. The strikes threatened on Iran’s power grid—once imminent—have been paused, not canceled, and made contingent on diplomatic momentum that one side insists exists and the other denies outright. Meanwhile, the fighting continues, with no clear end in sight.
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- The Countdown to a Ground WarDonald Trump announced this week that the United States and Iran had made significant progress in negotiations, and he was allowing five days to reach a deal. Tehran denied that it was talking with Washington at all. This is not, in any meaningful sense, a negotiation: It is a countdown. The timing is not coincidental. Thousands of Marines and much of the 1st Brigade of the 82nd Airborne are en route to the Middle East. Trump may intend the talks to act as cover for an escalation decision already made. Even if he doesn’t, the structural reality is the same: When the deadline expires, he will be close to having significant ground-combat capability in the region and a collapsing diplomatic process to justify using it. The gap between the two sides makes the collapse of talks likely. The American framework is, in essence, a demand for Iran’s surrender. The administration’s 15-point proposal, delivered to Iran via Pakistan, requires Tehran to dismantle its entire uranium-enrichment infrastructure, surrender its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, sever all ties with proxy forces across the region, and accept strict limits on its conventional military. In exchange, Washington is offering sanctions relief and support for a civilian nuclear-energy program. The proposal is very similar to the deal that the United States put on the table before the bombing campaign began. Iran’s counter-framework reflects a regime that does not believe it is losing. Tehran is demanding binding guarantees that neither the United States nor Israel will strike again, reparations for the damage already inflicted, and formal recognition of its control over the Strait of Hormuz. On enrichment and proxies, Iranian negotiators have shown no willingness to move. The war has not moderated the Iranian regime. It has hardened it. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps now dominates Iran’s internal deliberations to a degree unprecedented even under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran effectively controls the strait, and it knows that this control affords Tehran real leverage. Iran appears to have concluded that it is better positioned for a war of endurance than for a negotiated capitulation. Trump could still choose to declare victory, or even accept terms closer to Iran’s position, if he concludes that the alternative is a longer and more uncertain war. Last year’s trade confrontation with China ended with significant American concessions obscured by wins against U.S. allies and dressed in the language of reciprocal success. A similar reframing is conceivable here. He could point to Iran’s degraded navy, its shattered air force, the deaths of senior regime officials, and the setback to its nuclear program and argue that the threat has been sufficiently reduced to warrant a softer settlement. [Eliot A. Cohen: The war with Iran is exposing big problems for the military] But the Iran case will be harder to obscure than the China one was. Trade balances are abstract; the Strait of Hormuz is not. A deal that leaves the IRGC in effective control of the world’s most crucial shipping lane, imposes no enforceable limits on Iran’s missile or enrichment programs, and offers the regime international legitimacy cannot easily be framed as victory, especially when America’s closest regional partners will be lining up to say otherwise. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly told Trump that the United States should continue fighting to destroy the Iranian regime and remake the region. The United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the United States rejected the idea of a “simple cease-fire,” calling instead for “a conclusive outcome that addresses Iran’s full range of threats.” The UAE and Saudi Arabia may not have fully welcomed the war in the first place, but now that it is under way, they will not want to see Iran emerge stronger from it. Meanwhile, Israel remains committed to regime change or, failing that, maximum degradation, and it worries about a deal that meets Tehran halfway or a cease-fire. These governments can be expected to push Trump to continue the war once the talks collapse, although they seem to have concerns about ground operations. But Trump wants to avoid a messy, long war, which could lead to sustained high oil prices and a possible recession. Ground troops would seem likely to bring this outcome about—but Trump appears to believe that their introduction will instead deliver a decisive knockout blow, which will either compel Tehran to accept his terms or make a U.S. declaration of victory credible. Trump announced yesterday that he had rescheduled a visit to China for May 14 and 15, which suggests that he expects the war to be over by then. According to media reports about internal Trump-administration deliberations, three ground operations are most likely: a raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Isfahan to seize its stockpile of highly enriched uranium; the seizure of Kharg Island, Iran’s principal oil-export hub; and the deployment of troops to Iran’s shoreline to suppress its attacks on shipping through the strait. Each carries risks that the administration appears to be underestimating. Austin Long, a senior nuclear fellow at MIT, told me that Iran’s highly enriched uranium is a white, crystalline solid, uranium hexafluoride, stored in thick, steel cylinders, and cannot be reliably and permanently destroyed with explosives. If the cylinders are pierced, they emit a severely hazardous gas. A successful seizure from Isfahan would require U.S. troops to secure a wide perimeter, locate and excavate up to 970 pounds of the uranium buried under an unknown depth of rubble, protect it from counterattack, load it onto aircraft, and depart under fire. The operation would be arguably the most complex raid ever carried out by U.S. forces. The 970 pounds of uranium could also be spread among Isfahan and two other sites, raising the possibility of multiple raids. [Nancy A. Youssef and Missy Ryan: The U.S. and Iran are fighting a massively asymmetrical war] Kharg Island and the coastal positions present different but equally serious problems. Forces on Kharg would immediately be within range of sustained Iranian fire; Iran could respond by attacking energy infrastructure and desalination plants across the Persian Gulf or destroying the island’s oil facilities to deny them to the Americans. Coastal positions are reportedly located near population centers, which would complicate both the military mission and the international response. In each scenario, the most plausible outcome is not a clean victory but a situation that demands more troops, more time, and more exposure to avert failure. The deeper problem is that military operations, however successful tactically, cannot substitute for what the war is trying to achieve strategically. Trump launched this conflict believing that Iran was weak, and that a short, sharp campaign would force a new leader to terms. The regime has proved more resilient and more capable of inflicting sustained damage on the region than the president expected. The question worth asking now is not whether the U.S.-Iran talks will fail, but what the United States will do on the other side of that failure. Trump has a long history of claiming victory in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This may be the rare moment when that instinct serves the country—because the alternative appears to be doubling down on a losing strategy by launching a ground war.
- Trump Is Flailing on IranDonald Trump’s way of talking about war has always swung between extremes. He threatens “fire and fury” one day and extols his dictator buddies for their kind and thoughtful gestures the next. Since the conflict with Iran began, however, the cycle between aggression and conciliation has spun more rapidly. The president issues new and more terrible threats against Tehran, then backs off with soothing praise. He has now begun to do these things simultaneously. The reason may be that world markets, especially for oil, want the war to end, so that shipping can presumably resume through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has learned that he can encourage the markets to expect a speedy end to the war by promising that talks are proceeding toward a settlement, or at least that he intends to quit the conflict and frame it as a victory. However, the Iranians can also read these messages. Every time Trump signals that he wants the war to end, they recognize his desperation. So, to counter this effect, Trump attempts to threaten Iran with new punishments should it fail to make a satisfactory deal. But of course, the markets can also read the threats. So Trump must counteract the impression caused by his saber-rattling with promises of peace. [Read: Six days of war, 10 rationales] A little more than a week ago, Trump warned, “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Then he extended the deadline twice, explaining that he was holding promising talks with the Iranians. The Iranians have responded that no such discussions have occurred. It is difficult to assess which of these notably unreliable parties is accurately conveying the state, or non-state, of negotiations. Even so, a discouraging sign emerged yesterday in the form of a morning Trump post on Truth Social. It begins by reiterating his most dovish claims that the Iranian regime has changed, thereby fulfilling his prewar objective, and is now negotiating with him: “The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran.” Regime change, in fact, refers specifically to ending a country’s system of government, not merely changing the individual people running it. The revolution that deposed the shah and replaced him with an Islamic theocracy was regime change. Replacing one leader with his son does not constitute “regime change” any more than electing a Republican president to succeed a Democratic one does. At least this fiction is consistent with Trump’s apparent attempt to find a way out by spinning his adventure in Iran as a success. Praising the “new” regime as reasonable likewise advances this goal. Yesterday’s Truth Social post reiterates that the U.S.-Iran negotiations—which, again, may or may not be happening—are making progress, and will probably succeed. But Trump also vows that failure will be met with terrible violence: “Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.’” Threatening to commit war crimes—and destroying civilian infrastructure such as desalination plants would certainly qualify—is generally an uncomfortable rhetorical pivot in any presidential text. It is even more awkward when the threat immediately follows praise of the prospective target’s leadership for its reasonableness. Trump does try to supply a moral justification, of sorts, for such a crime: “This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year ‘Reign of Terror.’” If the president is planting a defense for a future war-crimes trial at The Hague, he has not given his prospective legal team much to work with. As a motive for committing atrocities, “retribution” is more of a confession than an alibi. What’s more, whatever moral force Trump generates by citing the regime’s “Reign of Terror” as a rationale for harming its citizens is undercut by his casually noting that those offenses were committed by the old regime, the one that Trump claims has changed. The Allies bombing Dresden in 1945 was notorious, but bombing it in 1946 would have been altogether worse. [Watch: Trump’s mixed messages about Iran] A normal politician would attempt to convey that he is being reasonable and negotiating in good faith, whereas his adversaries are violent war criminals. Trump is arguing the reverse. Perhaps he is calculating that Iran has blundered by surrendering its well-honed “unstable aggressive fanatic” identity, and now he has a chance to own that brand. Or, more likely, he is desperately flailing for a message that will reassure the stock market and scare the Iranians—rather than the other way around. To be sure, there is another group that is alarmed both by Trump’s wild threats of escalation and by his intimations of peace: the rest of the world, which is coping with an economic crisis caused by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump proposes in a new post this morning that, having changed the regime, he will leave the wee problem of the strait for our former allies to deal with. Not our problem; they should have thought of it before we started the war.
- Why Trump Thinks He Can Walk Away From the Strait of HormuzThe oil shocks of the 1970s forced traumatic austerity on Americans. Some gas stations had miles-long lines; fuel was rationed based on whether a car’s license-plate number was even or odd; the White House Christmas tree went unlit; daylight savings was imposed year-round. The fuel crisis that America’s war on Iran has unleashed is far larger—the biggest oil-supply shock in history, an estimated three times the disruption caused by the Arab oil embargo. Iran has effectively cut off the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) flowed until recently. And yet, unlike in the ’70s, America is now an energy superpower, largely insulated from the economic pain caused by its actions, which instead are now being borne by Asia and will soon reach Europe. The dynamic is like a psychology experiment played out on a global scale: America can administer shocks to other countries without feeling much pain itself. The man at the control panel is Donald Trump. The president, a lover of leverage, not only understands that American allies are bearing the brunt of his actions—he is reveling in it. In his prime-time speech from the White House on Wednesday, Trump said that the strait’s closure was not America’s problem: “The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future.” As far as he was concerned, all of the suffering countries could simply fix the problem themselves. “Build up some delayed courage,” the president said. “Go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves.” He went on, “When this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It will just open up naturally.” In other words: Best of luck! The next day, the clear lack of an American-led plan to open the strait caused stock-market declines and oil prices to shoot up nearly 8 percent. Many of America’s allies in Asia—where the price of LNG has roughly doubled since the start of the war—are already taking extreme measures. The Philippines, whose power plants run predominantly on imported fuel, has declared a state of emergency; it may order a grounding of civilian aircraft. In Japan, ferry services are being cut back and bathhouses are shutting down. South Korea is restricting the export of jet fuel. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, which are heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil and have small stockpiles, violence is breaking out at gas stations. For American consumers, the cost to fill up a car has increased since the war began by $1 a gallon—because oil prices are set on the global market. Yet this is counterbalanced by the $60 billion windfall that American oil producers could earn if prices remain high. The U.S. price of LNG, by contrast, is set in a more localized market, and has gone almost unchanged. [David Frum: Why Trump didn’t predict the gas-price spike] In Europe, LNG prices are about 60 percent higher than before the war. The last tankers that departed Qatar before Iran bombed its Ras Laffan facility have been arriving in European ports. Thereafter, supplies will diminish quickly. European reservoirs of LNG were already low because of a colder-than-expected winter. Britain and Italy, where electricity comes disproportionately from gas-fired power plants, will be hit the hardest. Unlike the Persian Gulf oil supply, some of which can be routed overland, LNG is well and truly stuck until the Hormuz crisis is resolved. If and when a cease-fire occurs, restarting production will take weeks—and Iran’s attacks have destroyed 17 percent of Qatar’s LNG-exporting capacity, which will require years to repair. The United States will not have such monumental problems, but it will have some—all of which cut against Trump’s previously pledged goals. Having campaigned in 2024 against Biden-era inflation, Trump will be directly responsible not just for higher prices at the pump, but for higher general inflation, because fuel is an intermediate input in the production of most goods. Trump pledged to make buying a house easier for Americans: The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has shot up by half a percentage point since the start of the war, as markets anticipate that the Federal Reserve will now be more hesitant to pursue expansionary monetary policy. Trump pledged to do right by farmers, who had already been buffeted by his erratic tariff regime and Chinese retaliation. But because one-third of the world’s fertilizer flows also transit through the Strait of Hormuz, farmers face much greater costs as the spring planting season begins. The Hormuz crisis has some beneficiaries: America’s adversaries. To prevent even higher oil prices, the Trump administration has lifted sanctions on Russian exports and even some of Iran’s. “Things that Iran and Russia had sought to achieve through negotiations with the United States, they’ve managed to achieve without having to negotiate,” Michael Froman, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told me. “This is bailing out the Russian economy, which had been on the ropes, and, at least temporarily, it is giving a windfall to Iran.” Russia could recoup an additional $40 billion or more in oil exports this year, which it can plow into its war effort against Ukraine. Iranian oil production may be as high as before the war. Although China is a heavy net importer of Middle Eastern gas and oil, it is recouping different dividends. China has learned that “if there is a crisis of any kind over Taiwan, we are not prepared for the ensuing economic fallout. We have not coordinated with allies about how we’re going to deal with the supply-chain disruptions,” Eyck Freymann, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of a forthcoming book, Defending Taiwan, told me. China does not need military superiority to triumph in a conflict over Taiwan; it may simply need to outlast the West. “China has built a fortress economy that is designed to withstand severe or even total disruptions in key commodity supply chains for several months,” Freymann said. The country has huge stockpiles of oil it can tap, and it has considerably diversified its energy sources, relying on coal, nuclear, and renewables. [Robert Kagan: America is now a rogue superpower] For America, the war effort will incur different costs—ones that are less tangible and less immediate. Pax Americana has never looked like a shakier proposition. America’s allies in Europe and Asia took the indignity of unilateral tariff increases with relatively little retaliation. Trump’s handling of his war on Iran—attacking without consultation, expecting unwavering support, forcing higher prices on others—has dealt another blow to these relationships. Spain and Italy have both denied America use of military bases in their territory; Britain, the erstwhile steadfast ally of America, wavered on the issue, too. Trump is once again toying with the idea of leaving NATO out of anger. Most countries would prefer American hegemony to a multipolar world where they are consigned to one of China’s or Russia’s spheres of influence. But the distinctions between these visions of the world are diminishing. The alienation of longtime U.S. allies will continue for as long as Washington exercises its military and economic clout selfishly and capriciously. Criticisms of the U.S. president that would once have been made in private diplomatic cables are now spilling out into the open. Asked about Trump’s management of the crisis on Thursday, Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, had this to say: “When we’re serious, we don’t say the opposite of what we said the day before every day, and maybe one shouldn’t speak every day.”
- A Turning Point in the Iran WarThis story was updated at 4:45 p.m. on March 26. President Trump has been sounding desperate lately for an off-ramp from the war he started, emphasizing progress in negotiations that may or may not reflect reality and declaring that “this war has been won” despite ample evidence to the contrary. An Iranian missile attack on a major natural-gas facility in Qatar last week might help explain his turn-the-page posture. The strike came in retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iran’s portion of a massive natural-gas field that extends into Iranian and Qatari territory, and it was more a warning shot than a full-on assault. But the effects on Qatar’s economy and global energy markets were profound, offering a glimpse of the catastrophes that might follow a broader Iranian military campaign against energy facilities across the Persian Gulf. The damage to the Ras Laffan industrial facility, about 50 miles from the center of Doha, Qatar’s capital, reduced the country’s export capacity for liquified natural gas by 17 percent, creating a projected loss of $20 billion in annual revenue. The Qatari energy ministry says repairs will take three to five years. It took the country more than a quarter century—from the discovery of the natural-gas field off its shores to the first shipments of energy—to become the world’s third-largest LNG exporter and one of the richest nations on Earth. It took Iran one night to prove that it could derail the entire enterprise and imperil Qatar’s future. Qatar’s state-owned energy company declared force majeure with customers in Italy, Belgium, South Korea, and China, meaning it can’t fulfill its contractual obligations owing to circumstances beyond its control. Qatar already had stopped LNG production shortly after the war began, for the first time in its history. That removed about a fifth of the world’s LNG supply. A prolonged stoppage could upend Qatar’s economy, whose growth was predicated on the expansion of its side of the gas field. The pain wouldn’t be contained to Qatar. If its LNG facilities remain offline for the rest of this year, global supply will effectively revert to 2021 levels, according to Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Trump fired off a Truth Social post soon after the attack on Ras Laffan, insisting that the United States knew nothing about the initial Israeli strike. (Israeli officials said otherwise in press reports.) Israel would cease its attacks, he said. But if Iran hit Qatar’s facility again, Trump promised to “blow up the entirety” of Iran’s side of the gas field. On Saturday, he threatened to attack Iranian power plants if the country didn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Monday evening. That ultimatum sent already surging oil prices even higher, and after an ensuing market panic, Trump announced a five-day reprieve, in light of the talks that he claimed were bearing fruit—but that Iran has claimed aren’t even happening. Trump’s whipsawing public comments and social-media posts have created confusion throughout the war. But this much is evident: Despite all Iran has lost, it maintains the military capability to cause a global energy crisis. If Trump hadn’t known this before, the Ras Laffan attack offered a clear demonstration. A few days after the attack on Ras Laffan, Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, broke the silence he had maintained since the start of the war. The global economy is now facing a “major, major threat” from the disrupted flow of oil and natural gas, Birol warned during an event in Australia on Monday. More than 40 energy facilities across nine countries have already been severely damaged, he noted, so even if the war ended this week, it could take months or years to bring supplies back to prewar levels. Birol compared the loss of oil supply from the current war to the two major energy crises in the 1970s. The loss of natural gas, he added, is equivalent to the supply shock experienced after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “This crisis, as things stand now, is two oil crises and one gas crisis put all together,” he said. Countries far from the Middle East are already feeling the acute pain of shortages. Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the Philippines announced that government employees would work only four days a week, in order to conserve electricity and gasoline. In Thailand, where Qatar accounts for more than 40 percent of LNG supply, government workers were told to cancel overseas trips and use stairs instead of elevators. [Read: The Iran war’s next threat is to food and water ] The attack on Qatar has implications beyond the energy market. The country is one of the world’s leading producers of urea, a key component of fertilizer. With spring planting season coming in the Northern Hemisphere and fertilizer not shipping out of the Gulf, a global food crisis could be on the horizon. Qatar also provides a third of the world’s helium, a by-product of natural-gas production and a key ingredient in the manufacturing of computer chips and medical imaging equipment. Shipments of that crucial element have also ceased. Qatar is accustomed to instability in its backyard disrupting delicate supply chains and eating into its bottom line. During the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, tanker ships caught in the cross fire ended up at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, which scared off potential customers. The war then deferred economic growth. But the war now is devastating it. Iran and Qatar are linked by geology. The natural-gas field is by far the largest deposit on the planet. Qatar’s portion is approximately 2,300 square miles, about half the land area of the entire nation. That shared natural resource is a big reason Qatar has long maintained closer relations with Iran than its neighbors—to their consternation. In 2017, four regional rivals implemented a land and air blockade of Qatar, citing comments by its emir praising Iran as a great power. (Qatari officials claim that the statements were fabricated in an elaborate computer hack. The country weathered political and economic isolation with the help of LNG exports because shipping routes remained open.) Now that Iran has attacked Qatar, their future relationship is in doubt, and rivals have found a new reason for solidarity. Three of the four countries that blockaded Qatar—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain—have also been the target of Iranian drones and missiles. (The fourth, Egypt, is further from the action.) Following the strike on Ras Laffan, Qatar expelled two senior Iranian diplomats and threatened more if Iran’s campaign continued. [Read: The Gulf countries can’t take much more ] “There will need to be a lot of effort to reestablish the trust in the relationship with the Iranians,” Majed al-Ansari, an adviser to Qatar’s prime minister and the chief spokesperson for its foreign-affairs ministry, told me. And with that will come a new focus on deterrence, he said. Going forward, Qatar can be expected to spend much more of its wealth on air defenses, fighter planes, and other military hardware. “We need to have very frank discussions with our security partners in the U.S. and Europe about how to reestablish this deterrence,” al-Ansari said. That’s perhaps a diplomatic way of saying that Qatar needs protection, and it really needs the Americans and the Israelis to stop giving Iran reasons to blow up the backbone of its economy. Qatar has geared much of its foreign policy toward solving other countries’ problems, acting as a mediator in wars, territorial disputes, and hostage negotiations. It’s not a party to the current diplomatic efforts to achieve a cease-fire between Iran and the United States. But Doha is pressing both sides to find an exit. “The longer the conflict continues, the more it harms everyone—not just in the region,” al-Ansari said. When we spoke, Trump had not yet announced his reprieve on strikes against Iranian energy facilities, which he extended to April 6 in a Truth Social post this afternoon. After that, we’ll know better if the crisis is contained or about to get much worse.