On Monday, Trump declared that he was going to take over the Hormuz Strait and charge 20% of cargo value for passage through it. Several OPEC states immediately took the hint and attacked Iran, finally, so today, Wednesday morning, he’s rescinded his strait takeover plans and announced new trade deals with the OPEC nations instead, one of which has already denied agreeing to one. Meanwhile, he’s threatened Iran with the destruction of their power sources and bridges by this weekend if they don’t come to the table and make a deal.
So of course, they’ll delay until Friday and then agree to talk again. As usual, nothing will be agreed on or if it is, it will only be to gain some time and no agreement will actually be acted upon by the Iranians.
What this will accomplish is a further delay in the opening of the strait. Ships keep trickling through, but not many, just enough for Trump to point at them and crow “Look, look, the Strait is open”, before another ship gets hit by Iran, ship passage stops again and more bombs and rockets strike Iran and Iran strikes back at anything they want to.
That strait will stay semi-shut down until Trump decides to act decisively. Since he just told Congress that this is a Brand New 60 day war period before Congress can demand that a war be declared or get the hell out, it’s hard to say if this is the last 60 day re-start or if there will be more before he’s done playing with Iran. I’m thinking that he may want Venezuela’s oil production to be a serious challenge to Middle East production before letting the strait finally open for good, which of course means seeing a different form of government in Iran. Considering the permanent damage to a significant portion of M.E. oil production that’s the result of all this, already, that shortens the Venezuelan timeline and the longer this goes on, the greater the damage.