Qatar has drafted an interim Hormuz deal, and Trump says the strait could reopen within days
Rubio says there has been progress but not finality. The sticking point is still who controls the passage and whether Iran can charge for it.
There is a draft on the table. Qatar has confirmed that a written proposal exists for an interim agreement built around the Strait of Hormuz, and Donald Trump said the waterway could reopen within days, with the customary threat attached to the end of the sentence if it does not.
Marco Rubio was cooler about it. He described progress, and pointed out that progress is not finality. That is the gap between a text that exists and a text somebody signs.
What the draft covers
Three things, broadly. Restoring the 17 June ceasefire between Washington and Tehran. Settling the dispute over shipping through the strait. And creating room for wider talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, which has been the real subject all along.
The knot is in the middle one. Iran wants control of the passage and the right to charge transit tolls, neither of which it exercised before the war began on 28 February. Washington rejects both outright. Qatar has been running indirect talks, and the emir took a call from Trump aimed precisely at finding where the two positions still overlap.
Why this reaches Portuguese petrol stations
In peacetime, roughly a fifth of the world’s oil moves through that channel. With it closed, crude pushed past 100 dollars, and the effect arrived at Portuguese pumps with the two or three week lag it usually has.
None of this is new to anyone following the file. Iran had already turned down the American offer in Islamabad a little over a week ago, and the reason this one stretch of water sets the price of petrol has not changed since.
The war has not paused for the diplomacy. Houthi forces claimed an attack on a Saudi tanker this week, exactly the kind of event that can unmake a draft before it becomes an agreement. The next 48 hours decide which one wins.
Image: NASA / MODIS (public domain)
