Bessent: No Sanctions Relief Until Hormuz Opens, Iran Surrenders Uranium

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued Washington’s clearest conditions yet for any sanctions relief toward Iran on Thursday, telling reporters that the Strait of Hormuz must reopen and Tehran must surrender its highly enriched uranium before any economic concessions are possible.

“Nothing is going to be on the table until we see the Strait of Hormuz open, and the Iranians agree they have to turn over the highly enriched uranium,” Bessent said at a White House briefing.

The statement amounts to a dual-key requirement: physical control of a global oil chokepoint and nuclear disarmament steps must both move before Washington will discuss unwinding the sanctions architecture that has choked Iran’s economy for years.

Talks Continue, Trump Won’t Take a ‘Bad Deal’

Bessent confirmed negotiations between Washington and Tehran are active but characterized them as slow and contested. The two sides are “going back and forth” in talks, he said, adding that President Trump “is not going to take a bad deal.”

The remark signals the administration is not under pressure to close an agreement quickly — a posture consistent with Trump’s repeated public warnings that military options remain on the table. The diplomatic backdrop is the 60-day ceasefire extension memorandum of understanding the White House confirmed this week, which has been agreed in principle but remains unsigned pending Trump’s formal approval.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian pushed back on the pressure from Tehran on Thursday, reiterating that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons and warning that “We do not engage in diplomacy with humiliation.” The statement draws a line around what Tehran will accept as a framework — a position that appears at odds with Bessent’s demand for uranium surrender as a precondition rather than an outcome of talks.

Oil Markets Watch the Strait

Bessent also offered a forward-looking assessment of global energy markets, saying prices could fall sharply once a Hormuz agreement is reached. “Once we have an agreement between the US and Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, I think the oil market is going to be very well supplied on the other side,” he said. He noted that many tankers are currently waiting to exit the Gulf — a supply bottleneck that would release rapidly once passage is restored.

The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly 20 percent of global oil trade. Its closure or restriction has been a central driver of the current energy price spike. Treasury’s framing suggests the administration views Hormuz resolution as the single largest near-term lever on global oil supply.

The Treasury OFAC designation of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority earlier this week signaled Washington is using sanctions as direct leverage over access to the waterway, not merely as general economic pressure.

Oman Assures Washington: No Hormuz Tolls

In a related development, Bessent disclosed that Oman’s ambassador to Washington told him Oman has “no plans for tolling the strait.” The assurance came one day after Trump issued a public warning to Oman against entering any agreement with Iran that would give Tehran a share of control over the waterway.

The Kuwait attack and Trump’s subsequent threat to bomb Oman elevated Muscat’s position in the crisis, with Washington signaling it views any joint Iran-Oman arrangement over Hormuz as a redline. Oman’s ambassador’s statement appears intended to de-escalate that specific pressure point while preserving Muscat’s role as a diplomatic back-channel between Washington and Tehran.

Oman has historically served as a quiet intermediary in US-Iran contacts, including during the Obama-era nuclear talks that produced the 2015 JCPOA. Its cooperation — or loss thereof — carries strategic weight beyond the immediate Hormuz question.

European Pressure Mounts

The European Union added its voice to calls for Hormuz stability Thursday, with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas calling for more European naval ships to secure the strait. The statement reflects growing concern in Brussels that the disruption to tanker traffic is feeding directly into European energy costs and supply security, pressures that will intensify heading into autumn.

European involvement also adds a multilateral dimension to a negotiation the Trump administration has largely framed as a bilateral US-Iran matter. Whether Washington would welcome European naval presence — or view it as complicating its leverage — has not been addressed publicly.

What Comes Next

The sequencing Bessent described — Hormuz first, then uranium, then talks about sanctions — sets a high bar for near-term diplomatic progress. Iran has historically resisted preconditions as a matter of principle, and Pezeshkian’s public remarks Thursday suggest Tehran is not prepared to concede either demand before negotiations produce something tangible.

With US munitions stocks already under strain from the strikes campaign and the ceasefire MOU still awaiting Trump’s signature, the administration faces a narrow window to convert military pressure into a durable agreement before the diplomatic and military calculus shifts. Bessent’s public statement of conditions may be as much a message to Tehran as it is a domestic political signal: the administration is not moving off its position.