Trump’s time to strike an Iran deal is running out

President Donald Trump is priming the American public for an intensified hot war with Iran. On Oct. 8, Trump declared on Truth Social that “We will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections,” implicitly leaving the door open to renewed escalation after the Nov. 3 vote. On Oct. 13, Trump accused the Houthis, Iran’s proxy force in Yemen, of striking Saudi Arabia to drive up oil prices ahead of the midterm elections and said he would make a decision on Iran “very soon.”Strong words, but does the Trump administration have the desire to match its bark with bite? Circumstantial evidence suggests no. Despite repeated entreaties for assistance from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the U.S. has declined to join Riyadh’s military campaign to reassert Yemeni government control over the Red Sea coast. Negotiations on reopening the Strait of Hormuz continue under the shadow of renewed war. America’s depleted stocks of Patriot interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles have pushed the Pentagon toward an industrial rebuild that a wider war would undermine.While hawks in Washington and around the world will rebuke Trump for not staying the course in Iran, his restraint is prudent. Although progress has been made toward escorting cargo ships safely through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s chokehold on the strait still poses a grave threat to global energy security. The International Monetary Fund warned this week that a prolonged Hormuz blockade could keep oil above $130 a barrel into early 2027. While scarce naval assets are tied up keeping oil shipments moving, one-third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer trade hangs uneasily in the balance. The Strait of Hormuz impasse is as much a food security crisis as an energy security one. The economic damage from the Hormuz crisis is compounded by the fact that it is not occurring in isolation. Tehran-backed Houthi advances on the Bab el Mandeb Strait threaten Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea export route — its main bypass around Hormuz — and could drive fuel prices even higher. With Europe phasing out Russian fossil fuels, inadequate supply from the Middle East could precipitate a continent-wide recession.Meanwhile, Russia’s daily assaults on Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure threaten the port terminals that export grain and fertilizer to the world’s poorest countries. More than one-quarter of the world’s population — 2.1 billion people — already suffer from moderate-to-severe food insecurity, and the Hormuz crisis is compounding the damage the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine did to food supply chains.Although Trump likes to say that the U.S. is largely insulated from the worst effects of the Hormuz crisis, that claim is patently false. Between diesel above $6.30 a gallon, gasoline near $4.40, soaring airfares, and mortgage rates above 7%, the Iran war has cost American consumers $265 billion in just seven months, according to Moody’s Analytics. That is roughly $2,000 per household, at a time when wage growth has slowed to a five-year low.Although the Iranian economy is collapsing under the weight of zero oil exports and spiraling inflation, the regime maintains its iron grip on power. The fresh memory of the December 2025–January 2026 protests — when the regime slaughtered thousands of demonstrators while Washington stood by — deters further unrest. While desperation may eventually force ordinary Iranians to take to the streets again, a U.S. strategy that hinges on the Iranian regime folding is a long game. Renewed war may only strengthen the Islamic Republic’s ability to stoke a patriotic rally and consolidate the influence of hardliners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who already hold the reins of power.It now appears that the Trump administration lacked both the resolve and the materiel to prosecute a regime-change war in Iran successfully. Although the Islamic Republic should eventually be held accountable for its unlawful obstruction of free trade, horrendous human rights abuses, and destabilizing support for proxy militias throughout the region, avoiding a global recession and millions of preventable deaths from malnutrition is the more urgent imperative.IRAN MISSION CREEP STARTS WITH ‘MEANINGFUL REDUCTION’The U.S. must negotiate a deal with Iran that provides targeted sanctions relief, an end to hostilities, verifiable limits on Tehran’s nuclear weapons potential, and an immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. A return to the pre-war cold peace — a scaled-down sanctions regime and contained tit-for-tat escalations — is far preferable to where things stand now.The good news is that the U.S. has mediators who are willing to do the heavy lifting on a peace deal. For months, Qatar and Pakistan have been shuttling messages between the U.S. and Iran. Their shuttle diplomacy produced the June 17 U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding. Signed by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, the MoU was supposed to end hostilities immediately and launch 60 days of talks on a final deal. That window lapsed on Aug. 17 without one. Doha and Islamabad remain committed to giving diplomacy a chance. A new round of talks cannot begin soon enough.Samuel Ramani is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and a frequent commentator for major media outlets, including the BBC, CNN, Sky News, and Al Jazeera. He holds an MPhil in Russian and East European studies and a DPhil in international relations from St Antony’s College, University of Oxford.