President Donald Trump met Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, at the White House on Monday as efforts to end the war with Iran continued. The meeting came amid mixed signals: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said negotiations were nowhere near a breakthrough, while Iran’s president said Tehran was open to talks but would not give in to pressure.
The Strait of Hormuz remains a central concern. Disruptions to shipping have rattled the global economy, and Gulf states are pushing for a diplomatic outcome after facing thousands of Iranian missile and drone attacks.
Rubio told reporters Sunday, before leaving for a G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Paris, that negotiations had made little headway. He said Trump preferred a diplomatic settlement but considered Iran’s demands unrealistic. A breakthrough, Rubio cautioned, was not close.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Monday that his country was willing to negotiate an end to what he described as an extended period of neither war nor peace. He said Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had directed officials to resolve the uncertainty, while insisting Iran would not yield to coercion.
Trump, meanwhile, said in a Sunday interview that he saw no reason to intensify the conflict. He also maintained that the Strait of Hormuz was open.
Mediators have discussed a possible two-day arrangement. Under the proposal, the United States would lift its naval blockade and release some frozen Iranian funds. Iran would move toward renewed nuclear inspections and reopen the strait, with broader negotiations to follow. Washington has not accepted the plan, and major disagreements remain.
The stakes are especially clear in Hormuz, the narrow shipping route between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Before the war, around one-fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption and more than one-fifth of liquefied natural gas trade passed through the waterway, making it one of the world’s most important shipping corridors.
Iranian attacks, shipping restrictions and U.S. military operations have sharply disrupted commercial traffic since the conflict began. Attacks on vessels have continued despite the American naval presence. Reuters reported Monday that tanker attacks in the Gulf and the strait rose markedly in October and continued into November. Iranian officials also said a tanker struck a mine east of the strait on Sunday.
At an energy conference in Abu Dhabi, Amos Hochstein, a former senior adviser to President Joe Biden who is now managing partner at TWG Global, disputed the idea that the strait had effectively reopened. He said commercial vessels were still being attacked and argued that a waterway requiring a substantial U.S. military presence for tankers to pass could not reasonably be called open.
Hochstein said the security measures, higher insurance costs and threat of further attacks show that normal navigation has not returned. Those risks, along with limits on maritime traffic, continue to weigh on the global economy.
U.S. Central Command has offered a more positive assessment. In late October, its commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, said American forces had cleared key shipping routes of Iranian mines and helped thousands of commercial vessels transit the strait. CENTCOM said more than 3,000 commercial ships had made the passage with U.S. military support over the previous six months.
Hochstein’s point was that military escorts may help ships get through, but they do not remove the commercial danger. He suggested the negotiations could be divided: the United States could focus on Iran’s nuclear program, while Gulf governments take a larger role in talks over navigation and maritime security.
Dr. Angela Wilkinson, chief executive of the World Energy Council, said the disruption had highlighted a weakness in global energy markets: a longstanding emphasis on efficiency without enough attention to resilience. She called for a better balance between energy security, affordability and sustainability, noting that higher logistics costs and new vulnerabilities are becoming harder to ignore.
The crisis has also pushed the United Arab Emirates to reduce its reliance on the strait. The country has invested in other export options, including a pipeline to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman that allows some oil shipments to bypass Hormuz.
UAE official Al Nuaimi said the country had increased oil exports since the war began. Before the conflict started on February 28, the UAE exported about 3.1 million to 3.2 million barrels a day; he said exports were now close to 4.4 million barrels a day. Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said at the Abu Dhabi conference on November 2 that exports had at times exceeded prewar levels.
The UAE is also investing in overseas storage, shipping infrastructure and additional export routes. Hochstein praised the UAE and Saudi Arabia for preparing for the risks of relying on a single maritime corridor, while noting that alternative infrastructure can provide backup but cannot replace the strait entirely.
The effects reach well beyond the Middle East. Higher shipping costs and disrupted supplies are being felt in energy markets around the world. Mohammed Baharoon, director general of the Emirati research center B’huth, described the standoff over Hormuz as an economic conflict that has affected people in countries including the Philippines, India and Brazil, despite their having no direct connection to the war.
Baharoon said the disruption has underscored the need for alternative pipelines, transport routes and supply chains. He noted that the war may have sped up plans to improve regional connections, but those plans predated the conflict. Even if the strait fully reopens, he said, the region will need more routes and supply networks that are durable, resilient and backed by alternatives.
