What To Make Of Trump's Rhetoric On Iran Amid Ceasefire Talks And Strait Of Hormuz Issues

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:01]I know that the past few times, President Trump has really ramped up his rhetoric. I'm thinking about the time he said essentially that a whole civilization will die tonight. He's then announced just hours later a ceasefire.

[00:00:14]And President Trump, he said on Truth Social this week that if Iran agrees to the proposal, the operation will end and the straight of Hormuz will be open. But he also said that if they don't agree, the bombing starts and it will be sadly at a much higher level and intensity than it was before. And I know that you said many have said President Trump's looking for an off-ramp here, right?

[00:00:34]People in his administration have said uh he would rather choose the diplomacy route. What do you make of that language than ratcheting up? Do you foresee fighting continuing?

[00:00:47]So look, I think the base case is really that you probably do get to some sort of I won't even say full ceasefire, but agreement that begins the process toward a a ceasefire and then some of the other question marks related to the nuclear program and then maybe down the line some of the other issues as we've talked about. I I think there is a not insignificant chance lower but not insignificant that yes that the Iranians actually don't agree to the deal that you have some real hardliners that see no uh reason to make a good an agreement now even as the blockade has had some meaningful impact on the Iranian economy and is challenging Iran and certainly would do so longer term and so then the US is left with doing nothing and just accepting this agreeing to worse conditions or yes ratching it up again.

[00:01:41]There is a significant target list that still remains that the US and Israel had developed that the US could take. The question is going to be whether the US and Israel continue along that target list of especially military entities in Iran, uh, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps entities, hitting the types of of naval assets and army assets, or whether it's about President Trump actually following through on say hitting civilian infrastructure, hitting bridges, hitting uh, electric grits, hitting desolization plants. I think if they do that, it's going to be a huge challenge because then Iran is going to ratchet up significantly and you'll go up this escalatory ladder. And so there's going to be this real challenge of how do you keep this from from escalating even more out of control than it's been in previous weeks. I I don't think that's the most likely case, but it's certainly not an impossible one to foresee.

[00:02:37]>> And my last question for you is clearly we are in a developing situation. And there's a lot to look out for, right, between these strikes that reportedly the United States is saying not a restarting of the fighting, not an ending of the ceasefire. You're also seeing reports that Iran is still reviewing that peace deal. They could be close perhaps. What specifically are you looking out for next?

[00:03:01]>> Yeah, I'm looking at a couple of things.

[00:03:03]I'm looking at what some of the rhetoric looks like, especially ahead of this China trip, because I think it's actually going to be quite important to trying to see how you get to a deal and where President Trump's thinking is on this. I'm also looking, frankly, at how the Iranians are reacting and what they are doing in a more defensive posture.

[00:03:24]We've already seen that there has been some, for instance, mining and defensive mechanism put up on Car Island where most of Iran's oil exports go through.

[00:03:34]Does Iran start to actually withdraw some of that or hold in a way that they think they're sufficient because the US isn't going to take actions that are escalatory or if Iran starts to build up against them, then Iran may be thinking, no, no, we have reason to believe the US really is coming and going to strike.

[00:03:52]And then I think the third thing is look, we're all looking at frankly where the markets are right now and there's I think a challenging way to understand the fact that the equity markets are just not where I think a lot of them people thought they would be. But the spread on the oil futures is still astronomical. And we know this plays into the US body politics. We know this plays into President Trump's thinking as well. And so I think that also may be a factor here that can have some impact that as we look over the next seven to 10 days.

[00:04:23]>> Jonathan Panov, always a pleasure. I'm really grateful for your expertise.

[00:04:28]Thank you so much for joining me. You're welcome back anytime.

[00:04:31]>> Thanks so much for having me.