Trump weighs major Iran escalation as China steps up diplomatic push

The House approved the sweeping sanctions legislation by a vote of 262-159 on Wednesday, after the Senate passed it 86-11 last month. Fifty-eight Democrats supported the bill, while seven Republicans opposed it.

The legislation would authorize the president to impose tariffs of up to 100% on the largest purchasers of Russian oil and natural gas and sanction senior Russian officials, oligarchs, banks and financial institutions. At Trump’s request, lawmakers also expanded the measure to include sanctions targeting Iran’s energy and weapons sectors.

Republican Representative Joe Wilson welcomed its passage and said lawmakers were looking forward to Trump signing it into law.

The measure could affect major importers of Iranian and Russian energy. India said Thursday that it had noted the bill’s passage while emphasizing that it remained committed to securing energy supplies through diversified sourcing and in response to changing market conditions.

The sanctions push came alongside indications that Washington and Tehran may be exploring a path toward ending the war. Trump said on Wednesday after arriving in North Carolina that he hoped the conflict was nearing its conclusion, adding that Iran was seeking an agreement.

“Well, hopefully we’re toward the end of the war,” Trump told reporters. “Iran is very much wanting to make a deal. We’ll see how that works out.”

Trump is also expected to meet leaders or foreign ministers from the six Persian Gulf states on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next Tuesday, Axios reported. The meeting is expected to address the next phase of the war and US proposals for a postwar strategy.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, meanwhile, said consultations during his visit to China had been successful and endorsed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s proposals for ending the conflict.

China’s Foreign Ministry said Araghchi told Foreign Minister Wang Yi that Iran did not want the hostilities to continue and hoped to return to diplomacy. Wang urged Iran and the United States to revive the negotiating framework established under the Islamabad memorandum, called for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and backed dialogue between Iran and Persian Gulf states.

Araghchi also held separate telephone calls from Beijing with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, to discuss regional developments.

A parallel diplomatic channel emerged in Oman, where US officials met senior representatives of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis over the weekend, Reuters reported. The Houthis said they had no intention of attacking American vessels and remained committed to their 2025 ceasefire with Washington, according to the report.

Two sources told Reuters that the group promised not to target US ships. A Yemeni source said the Houthis also pledged not to attack Israeli or other commercial vessels, with the exception of Saudi ships.

The discussions took place against a backdrop of continued fighting between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. Riyadh said it intercepted a Houthi drone near Mecca this week, an allegation the group denied. Saudi Arabia has also sought air-defense assistance from France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt as its interceptor stocks decline, the Associated Press reported.

Houthi-run media said Saudi strikes in Yemen on Thursday hit telecommunications towers in Taiz and killed one person in Abs. The Houthis also released footage they said showed the downing of a Saudi F-15, a claim that Saudi Arabia had not confirmed.

Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained severely constrained despite the diplomatic activity. Only three commodity vessels transited the waterway on Wednesday, down from 12 a day earlier and far below the 10-day average of about 17, Reuters reported, citing preliminary ship-tracking data.

US Central Command maintained that commercial traffic was still moving and that Iran did not control the strait. Its spokesperson said US forces had helped vessels carrying more than 900 million barrels of crude pass through the waterway since early May and had cleared mines from internationally recognized shipping lanes.

The sanctions bill, diplomatic contacts and continuing disruptions at Hormuz and in Yemen left Washington applying further economic pressure while testing whether negotiations could reduce the regional fighting.

The previously undisclosed meeting was held at the US Embassy in Muscat, three of the sources told Reuters. Two said Oman, a longtime regional mediator, helped organize the talks.

One source said the meeting took place on Sunday. US embassy personnel represented Washington, while the Houthi delegation included senior official Mohammad Abdulsalam, who is under US sanctions, and Abdelmalik al-Ajiri, according to Reuters.

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Houthis say US ships not a target

The Houthis told US officials they did not intend to attack American vessels and remained committed to a ceasefire reached with Washington in 2025, two sources told Reuters.

A Yemeni source said the group also said it would not attack Israeli ships or other commercial vessels, except those belonging to Saudi Arabia.

The State Department did not confirm the meeting but said protecting freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and preventing terrorism from spreading from the Middle East were core US interests.

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the Houthis had contacted his administration and asked Washington to stay out of the Yemen war. Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that the United States was in direct contact with the group.

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Talks come despite terrorist designation

The Trump administration designated the Houthis a "foreign terrorist organization" in March 2025.

Washington nevertheless negotiated with the group later that year and reached a ceasefire in May after two months of US strikes aimed at stopping attacks on Red Sea shipping.

The latest talks came after the Houthis seized effective control of Yemen's Red Sea coastline, including the port of Mocha and Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key route for international shipping.

Saudi-Houthi fighting intensifies

Later on Wednesday, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said that the group had attacked an airbase in Khamis Mushait as well as Aramco facilities in Yanbu. Saudi Arabia did not confirm either of the attacks.

The Houthis have fought a Saudi-led coalition for more than a decade after seizing Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in 2014.

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Fighting had largely eased under a ceasefire but resumed in July after the Houthis declared a blockade of Saudi shipping in the Red Sea in response to a Saudi blockade of Yemeni ports.

Saudi warplanes have since struck Houthi positions as the group has advanced along the Red Sea coast and launched attacks toward Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh sought US help

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called Trump last week seeking US military support as the Houthi offensive accelerated, Reuters reported.

Washington told Riyadh it would not become directly involved in the fighting, according to Reuters.

The escalation has also increased pressure on global energy supplies already disrupted by the Iran war and reduced shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said the meeting, scheduled for Monday in Salalah, was postponed “in the interests of consensus.” An Iranian Foreign Ministry official separately said the delay came at the request of “some regional countries,” while spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Saudi Arabia had sought the postponement because of developments in Yemen.

No new date has been announced for the meeting.

Baghaei described the planned gathering as an “opportunity” created by Iran and Oman and urged regional states not to let it slip away.

“I don’t think any responsible party would accept that we should lose this opportunity for any reason, whether because of outside interference or because of excuses that really have nothing to do with Iran, and that we should not hold this meeting,” he said Monday.

Several voices in Iran have gone further, explicitly accusing Washington of working to derail the initiative.

Fada-Hossein Maleki, a member of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, told Tabnak that the United States had sought from the outset to prevent the Muscat process from taking shape or, if the meeting went ahead, to ensure Washington participated as a third party.

He said an Iran-Oman understanding on Hormuz could represent “another political defeat for the United States” because Washington had sought a role in arrangements concerning the strategic waterway, while Iran and Oman had pursued dialogue over its future management and shipping arrangements independently of Tehran-Washington negotiations.

Ali Gholhaki, an adviser to parliamentary speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote on X that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates had obstructed the Oman meeting, but said “the main actor behind the cancellation of this meeting is America!”

International affairs analyst Mir-Ghasem Momeni offered a similar interpretation, telling ILNA that the postponement was aimed at increasing pressure on Iran and extracting further concessions.

“This is a scenario designed by the Americans, with Saudi Arabia and other countries carrying it out,” he said.

Saudi concerns offer another explanation

Saudi Arabia’s request came amid mounting tensions over Yemen and attacks on its energy infrastructure, providing a more immediate explanation for Riyadh’s reluctance to proceed with the talks.

The Houthis have stepped up pressure on Saudi Arabia amid fighting in Yemen, while attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure have added to concerns over the security of alternative export routes as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted.

Hardline Kayhan newspaper nevertheless alleged that Saudi Arabia had used the recent escalation involving the Houthis and attacks on Saudi infrastructure as a pretext to derail the planned meeting.

The Javan newspaper, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), sought to connect Riyadh’s position more directly to Washington, pointing to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s meeting with US Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper on Monday as evidence of what it described as US-Saudi coordination against the talks.

The meeting took place after Oman announced the postponement on Sunday night, however, and there is no public evidence linking Cooper’s visit to the decision to delay the Salalah gathering. Saudi state media said Mohammed bin Salman and Cooper discussed bilateral relations and the latest regional developments.

Limits of regional diplomacy

Some Iranian analysts have interpreted the postponement as evidence of a broader problem with attempts to resolve the Hormuz crisis solely through regional diplomacy.

Momeni argued that Washington retained enough influence over Persian Gulf Arab states to prevent them from reaching an independent arrangement with Tehran.

“The solution to the Strait of Hormuz problem is not an agreement between Iran and the Arab countries, but an agreement between Iran and the United States,” he said.

Political analyst Rahman Ghahramanpour wrote on X that the postponement was a sign of President Donald Trump’s reluctance to revive the Islamabad framework and his preference for designing a new framework that would simultaneously address the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the nuclear issue.

International relations professor Mohsen Jalilvand told Fararu that it had been clear from the outset that the meeting either would not take place or would fail to produce a tangible outcome because the principal parties to the conflict, particularly the United States and Israel, were absent from the negotiating table.

Jalilvand said that if the objective was to establish a durable mechanism for managing transit through the Strait of Hormuz, parties with genuine deterrent capabilities and the power to enforce an agreement would have to participate.

“Otherwise, regional treaties alone cannot provide a strong security guarantee for changing the current situation,” he said.

He added that the significance of the Oman meeting lay not simply in whether it was held, but in what its postponement revealed about the limits of regional diplomacy.

Opposition inside Iran

Not all criticism inside Iran has focused on why the meeting was postponed.

Kayhan editor Hossein Shariatmadari, a strong opponent of the understanding with Oman, has argued that the proposed arrangement amounts to giving the United States “a breathing space” and that Iran should not negotiate with other Persian Gulf countries over reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

In a Monday commentary, Shariatmadari sharply criticized the decision to invite other Persian Gulf states to the meeting, accusing them of protecting US and Israeli interests.

“As long as they have not paid the price for supporting the crimes of America and Israel and have not been punished, they should have no role or presence whatsoever in the decision-making of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he wrote.

Kayhan on the hard right, and Shargh and Donya-ye Eghtesad on the pragmatic and pro-reform side of the divide, all reported that the talks in Oman had effectively broken down, leaving Tehran without an immediate way out and its economy exposed to worsening inflation, shortages and a lurching currency.

The meeting had been meant to give Iran a diplomatic opening. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was due to present maps for a "managed transit corridor" through the Strait of Hormuz, and to seek regional endorsement of an Iran-Oman "phased framework," a temporary joint corridor and mine-clearance plan.

It did not happen. Fars News, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, reported that the postponement had been a joint decision by Tehran and Muscat, taken at the request of unnamed "certain regional countries."

Behind that phrasing sat a refusal. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain did not attend, and the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf declined to endorse Iran's transit proposal. They were being asked to back a plan for safe passage through Hormuz at a moment when Iran-aligned Houthi forces were expanding strikes on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline and fortifying coastal artillery at Bab el-Mandeb after taking the port of Mokha.

Washington's position was its own obstacle. It rejected treating the shipping question in isolation, insisting any transit arrangement be tied to broader nuclear concessions. Tehran's answer was that normal shipping requires an immediate halt to US tanker interdictions and the release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets under the Islamabad framework. Neither side moved.

The argument in Tehran

With the diplomatic route stalled, the argument inside Iran has turned to force, and the failure in Oman has sharpened it.

Kayhan, other Guards-aligned outlets and figures in the ultraconservative Paydari Front are pressing to abandon proportional retaliation altogether and to strike all Western-aligned shipping if a single Iranian vessel is hit.

They have paired this with a push to treat calls for referendums or ceasefires as treason, to cast economic hardship as an ideological duty, and to demand full withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty after the IAEA referred Iran to the UN Security Council.

Reformist and moderate figures in the administration argue instead for keeping the channels through Qatar and Oman open and putting economic survival first. But this is a dispute over method, not over the system either camp is defending: one faction would answer the blockade with escalation across the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, the other fears that combining a naval blockade abroad with intensified repression at home would leave Iran isolated on both fronts at once.

That repression is already visible. Police and the Revolutionary Guards have increased street patrols and moved additional forces into Tehran and Isfahan ahead of the anniversary of the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, which began in mid-September.

The economy behind the argument

The deadlock feeds directly into the crisis that produced the talks in the first place.

Point-to-point inflation is nearing 90 percent, and on the open market the rial is at 2.3 million to the dollar. Against a minimum monthly wage now worth about $72, the volatility alone makes household budgeting impossible.

The sharpest damage is in medicine. Container backlogs at Bandar Abbas, Iran's main southern port, have choked domestic pharmaceutical production and caused acute shortages of essential drugs. Out-of-pocket medical costs have more than doubled, pushing low-income households to abandon treatment. In call-ins to Persian-language television abroad, viewers have described selling household belongings to pay for care.

The government's own remedies have added to the strain. It has raised petrol prices and drawn on the central bank's foreign currency reserves, steps that have deepened the erosion of public trust rather than eased it.

The postponement, then, does more than delay a meeting. It removes Tehran's nearest diplomatic exit at a moment when the hardline factions are pressing for wider retaliation across the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, and when the economy can least absorb what that would cost. Whatever Iran's rival camps decide, it is private businesses and urban households that will carry it.

Only four commodity vessels crossed Hormuz on Monday, down from 10 on Sunday, Reuters reported, citing preliminary Kpler data. Two dry-bulk carriers exited, one carrying cargo and the other empty, while two empty oil tankers entered. The figures exclude ships that may have crossed with their tracking transponders switched off. TankerTrackers separately said two-way daytime traffic by very large crude carriers was continuing.

The dangers facing shipping were illustrated by the Panama-flagged tanker Elgaia, which Oman’s Maritime Security Center said was being towed to port after catching fire following an earlier attack.

An Omani naval vessel evacuated 23 crew members and arranged medical care, while searches continued for two missing people. The incident occurred about 1.3 nautical miles northeast of Musandam governorate. The statement did not identify an attacker.

Pressure also intensified around Bab el-Mandeb, the southern gateway to the Red Sea. Commodity-vessel transits there fell to 21 on Monday from 28 the previous day. France requested a UN Security Council meeting on the crisis for Tuesday afternoon in New York, Reuters reported, citing French diplomats.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said reciprocal attacks in the Persian Gulf were undermining efforts to end the war and must stop immediately. Speaking in Baku, he called for freedom of passage through Hormuz and restoration of the situation before the war, saying Ankara was in contact with all parties.

Pakistan and the UN nuclear watchdog also backed a diplomatic route. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and IAEA chief Rafael Grossi agreed that implementing the Islamabad memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States remained the best way to defuse tensions, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said. Grossi offered technical assistance if needed.

Saudi attacks and US war costs
The Saudi-led coalition said Houthi ballistic missiles and drones struck civilian targets in Khamis Mushait, Abha and Taif on Monday, injuring 13 people.

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Coalition spokesperson Major General Turki al-Malki said the injuries ranged from minor to moderate and that seven homes and two vehicles were damaged. He said the coalition would respond “responsibly and firmly” and take measures to deter further attacks.

Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defense issued new emergency alerts in Abha and Khamis Mushait on Tuesday before announcing shortly afterward that the danger had passed in both locations. Authorities did not disclose the nature of the threats.

Yemeni government aircraft, meanwhile, targeted Houthi weapons depots in Al-Jubah and below Mount Haylan in Marib province, Al Arabiya reported. Government forces also thwarted an attempted Houthi infiltration in Harib, south of Marib, according to the report.

The UN Security Council was scheduled to meet Tuesday afternoon in New York to discuss the deteriorating situation around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. France requested the meeting, two French diplomats told Reuters.

A US Defense Department inspector general report showed the scale of the conflict’s cost to Washington. The report estimated that the war had cost the United States about $33.4 billion through June 29 and had produced shortages of strategic munitions and exposed bottlenecks in the US defense industrial base.

The total included $22.3 billion in expended munitions, $3.7 billion in equipment losses and $7.4 billion in cumulative obligations, excluding repairs to military infrastructure.

US Central Command said that Iranian strikes damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan. Dozens of US aircraft were also damaged or destroyed during Operation Epic Fury, according to the report.

Seven US service members were killed in action and 417 were wounded between February 28 and June 30, while seven others died in non-hostile incidents.

IRGC officials mark 200 days of Khamenei’s rule
Inside Iran, senior IRGC officials expressed allegiance to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei as he completed 200 days in power without appearing publicly.

IRGC Aerospace Force commander Majid Mousavi praised Khamenei’s leadership in a message marking the 200th consecutive night of government-backed street gatherings. He urged participants to preserve their “sacred unity” and continue supporting the government, political officials and armed forces by following Khamenei’s directives.

Abdollah Hajisadeghi, Khamenei’s representative to the IRGC, similarly described the nightly gatherings as support for the armed forces, a “steadfast pledge of allegiance” to Mojtaba Khamenei and a demand to “avenge” slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The Basij also expanded its Janfada mobilization campaign, sending mass text messages announcing the start of military and first-aid courses for its “people’s units.” The campaign has said preparations are underway to train and organize 1,000 “national resistance” battalions.