Trump Toughens Iran Deal Terms; Tehran Says Key Issues Unresolved

President Donald Trump has toughened the terms of the proposed US-Iran agreement and sent the revised draft back to Tehran following a Friday meeting in the White House Situation Room, US media reported over the weekend, while Iranian officials said publicly that “key issues remain unresolved” in the talks being mediated by Pakistan. The revised draft has not been published, and US officials told reporters Tehran may take days to respond.

What changed in the revised draft

The New York Times reported, in coverage relayed by Middle East Eye, that Trump sent the revised proposal back to Tehran with “toughened” terms after the Friday Situation Room session, where the president personally requested several amendments to the text US negotiators had been preparing to transmit. Axios separately reported that Trump sought changes to the proposed agreement, without specifying which provisions were altered.

Neither outlet has published the amended language. US officials cited in those reports characterized the changes as a tightening rather than a redrafting, suggesting the broad structure of the package — Hormuz access, partial sanctions relief, and a nuclear framework — has held while specific ceilings, verification mechanics, or sequencing have been revised. Reporting earlier this week described a draft framework along those lines.

What the revisions do not appear to include, based on what has been reported, is any change to the basic trade at the center of the talks. The US continues to seek a binding Iranian commitment on Hormuz transit and constraints on the nuclear program; Iran continues to seek relief from sanctions imposed under the maximum-pressure framework. The dispute is over the calibration of each leg of that exchange.

Tehran’s position

Iranian officials responded to the revised draft by saying key issues remain unresolved and that negotiations would continue through Pakistani mediators, who have shuttled between the two sides since direct contacts were paused earlier in the cycle. The Iranian statement did not endorse the revised text and did not commit to a response timeline.

That posture is consistent with the line taken by Iran’s lead negotiator earlier in the week, when he said the final draft had not been approved and accused Washington of violations of previously agreed terms. The negotiator’s framing — that the US is moving the goalposts while Iran is being asked to accept fixed obligations — is the same framing Iranian officials have applied to the latest revisions, even as they stop short of declaring the talks broken.

Hormuz status

The Strait of Hormuz, which has been the operational fulcrum of the strike cycle since day one, is partially reopened. The IRGC said this weekend that 28 vessels passed through the strait over the past day, a transit volume well below pre-cycle norms but above the near-zero readings recorded during the closure phase. The figure is the IRGC’s own; independent AIS data has not been published for the same window.

That partial reopening is occurring outside the framework of a signed agreement, which complicates how the draft is read in Tehran. A Tasnim-affiliated leak earlier this week framed Hormuz access as something Iran could grant or withhold at its “final determination” — a positioning that gives Iranian negotiators leverage on the sequencing of any deal. Oil markets, for their part, cooled their Hormuz bets earlier in the cycle as US crude exports hit record volumes and SPR releases continued, leaving Brent less responsive than it was in week one of the closure.

Trump’s stated conditions

Trump told Fox News over the weekend that the United States is “close to a very good agreement” with Iran, language he has used at multiple points in the negotiating window. In the same interview he said US forces would withdraw from the region once the Strait of Hormuz is reopened and the nuclear issue is resolved, tying the future US footprint explicitly to the two outcomes the draft is meant to deliver.

Trump also told Fox News “we shouldn’t have been in Iran,” a reference to the prior US military footprint in the region rather than a comment on current operations. The remark places the president rhetorically at distance from the war while the administration he leads continues to negotiate the terms on which it ends. The juxtaposition with the toughened draft — distancing language on Fox, tightened terms in the Situation Room — is the central read on the president’s posture this weekend. Iran’s continued display of new platforms, including the 27 Rajab cruise-missile naval craft unveiled earlier in the week, suggests Tehran is reading the same juxtaposition and pricing it into its own posture.

What we don’t know

The specific text of the amendments Trump requested has not been published, and neither the NYT nor Axios reporting names a single concrete provision that was changed. Tehran has not given a timeline for its formal response, and the Pakistani mediation channel has not surfaced publicly since the revised draft was transmitted. The Pentagon and US Central Command have not commented on the state of the negotiations and have not addressed the IRGC’s claim that it shot down a US MQ-1 reconnaissance drone overnight Friday into Saturday — an incident that, if confirmed, would frame the diplomatic backdrop of any Iranian reply.

What to watch

Three things over the next 24 to 48 hours. First, an Iranian government statement — distinct from the diplomatic-source quotes already in circulation — accepting, rejecting, or counter-proposing on the revised draft. Second, any US move on the military side that signals how the administration reads the drone incident in relation to the talks: a CENTCOM statement, a sanctions designation, or a public release of engagement intelligence would each carry different weight. Third, the daily Hormuz transit figure: if the IRGC’s count drops materially from the 28-vessel weekend reading, it will indicate Tehran is willing to use the strait as a negotiating instrument even before its formal response is delivered.