Iran War’s Decisive Week: Tehran Proposal, Brent Over $107

Tehran’s new Iran Hormuz proposal would untie the strait reopening from the nuclear question — exactly the move Washington fears most, and the reason Trump just canceled the Pakistan delegation that was supposed to advance the talks.

A phased Iranian peace proposal landed in Washington over the weekend — and the United States response has been to cancel the very delegation that was supposed to receive it. The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that the new Iran Hormuz proposal conveyed via Pakistani mediators marks the most concrete diplomatic move since the April 7 ceasefire and arrives at the start of what analysts now describe as the most decisive week of the nine-week war.

The substance of the Iranian proposal, as relayed by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office and confirmed via multiple sources to Axios, AP, and CGTN, decouples the strait reopening from the nuclear question. Phase one: full cessation of hostilities plus binding guarantees against renewed strikes on Iran and Lebanon.

Phase two: management and security of the Strait of Hormuz, including the lifting of the US naval blockade. Phase three: nuclear negotiations — but only after the first two are operational.

Why the Iran Hormuz Proposal Sequencing Matters

The phased structure is the key innovation — and the reason Trump appears unwilling to engage. Washington’s stated war objectives include suspending Iranian uranium enrichment for at least a decade and removing the country’s enriched-uranium stockpile. Both objectives currently use the naval blockade and the Hormuz disruption as leverage.

If Iran reopens the strait first and Washington lifts the blockade, the leverage disappears — and Tehran would enter the nuclear-stage talks under no maritime pressure. One source briefed on the proposal told Axios that Araghchi made clear to Pakistani, Egyptian, Turkish, and Qatari mediators over the weekend that there is “no consensus inside the Iranian leadership” about how to address the US enrichment demand.

That admission is itself unusual. It suggests that the proposal is partly a stalling mechanism — buying time for Tehran to resolve its internal split between the harder line favored by the Revolutionary Guard and the negotiation-oriented track Pezeshkian has signaled.

Trump Cancels Pakistan Delegation

President Trump canceled the planned visit of envoy Steve Witkoff and senior advisor Jared Kushner to Islamabad on Saturday. “I see no point of sending them on an 18-hour flight in the current situation,” Trump told Axios.

“It’s too long. We can do it just as well by telephone.”

In a Truth Social post, the president added: “Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership.’ Nobody knows who is in charge, including them.” The cancellation arrives one week after Trump indefinitely extended the April 7 ceasefire while explicitly maintaining the naval blockade.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian rejected the framing in a Sunday statement: “The continued pressure and hostile actions are eroding trust and hindering the prospects for renewed dialogue. The United States cannot pursue negotiations while simultaneously escalating pressure — such actions disrupt the necessary atmosphere for diplomacy.”

Araghchi Diplomacy Tour

Araghchi’s weekend itinerary was designed to maximize regional pressure on Washington while keeping Tehran’s options open. He arrived Sunday in Muscat for talks with Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, focusing on the Hormuz security architecture — Oman shares the strait with Iran and runs the deep-water ports of Duqm, Salalah, and Sohar that bypass the chokepoint entirely.

The Iranian foreign minister also held phone consultations Sunday with his Qatari and Saudi counterparts. Iran is reportedly seeking Omani support for a toll mechanism on vessels transiting Hormuz — a structure that would convert Iranian control over the strait into a recurring revenue stream rather than the binary closure-or-reopening question that has dominated coverage.

After his Pakistan-Oman-Pakistan circuit, Araghchi continued to St. Petersburg Monday for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He told IRNA from the airport that the Russia visit was “a good opportunity for us to consult with our Russian friends about the developments that have occurred in relation to the war.”

Oil at US$107 and the Largest Energy Shock on Record

Brent crude traded above US$107 per barrel Monday morning, briefly touching US$108, in volatile session driven by the Trump cancellation and Pezeshkian’s pushback. WTI moved above US$96. The oil price has now traveled from US$72.48 on February 27 (war start) to a peak near US$128 on April 2, fell sharply to roughly US$93 on the April 7 ceasefire announcement, and is now back above US$107 nine weeks into the conflict.

The IEA has called the supply disruption — peak 10.1 million barrels per day in March — the largest in recorded oil-market history. IEA member states released a record 400 million barrels from emergency reserves to manage the gap. The agency has warned that even a Hormuz reopening would not return commercial flows to pre-crisis levels for months, given the operational and insurance disruptions.

Hormuz transit volumes ran at 3.8 million barrels per day in mid-April, against a normal 20 million. Daily ship transits fell from 129-140 vessels pre-war to 7 by April 10, a 95% collapse. The blockade and counter-blockade architecture remains fully in place even as the ceasefire is extended.

Latin American Markets Watch

Latin American economies enter the week with elevated exposure to oil-price movement. Brazil’s Copom meets Tuesday-Wednesday April 28-29 with the Selic at 14.75% and the market split between a 25 and 50 basis-point cut — a decision that arrives with Brent near US$107 and inflation expectations rising rather than falling.

Petrobras (PETR4) trades near a BTG-revised target of US$14 — down from US$17 — even as elevated Brent supports its export economics. Brazilian crude exports to China nearly doubled in Q1 2026 (+94% in value, +122% in volume), as covered in earlier Rio Times reporting on the Q1 trade surplus record. The redirection has filled the gap left by Iran’s Asian buyers.

Argentina’s Milei administration enters the same week with March inflation at 3.4% (10th consecutive month not falling), the IMF‘s growth cut to 3.5%, and the cabinet chief Adorni testifying Wednesday on enrichment allegations. Colombia’s COLCAP, Mexico’s IPC, Chile’s IPSA, and Peru’s BVL all open Monday with oil-import inflation accelerating against weak Q1 fiscal positions.

What the Week Tests

The Trump Situation Room meeting Monday will determine whether Washington engages with the phased proposal at all. The likeliest outcomes: (1) Trump rejects the sequencing entirely and demands nuclear concessions as a prior condition for any blockade lifting; (2) Trump engages selectively, accepting a limited Hormuz reopening for partial sanctions relief and parallel nuclear track; or (3) the talks remain stalled and oil drifts upward toward the US$110-115 zone Citigroup has warned about.

Iran has additional cards. The country’s existing deals to permit transit by China, Russia, India, Iraq, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines — outside the US blockade architecture — give Tehran the option to fragment the maritime regime further if Washington rejects the proposal entirely. France, the UK, and possibly Germany are reportedly preparing a contingency plan to reopen Hormuz post-conflict without US involvement.

For Latin America, the week begins with the Iran Hormuz proposal as the variable that determines whether oil retraces toward US$95 or extends toward US$110. The Brazilian Copom decision Wednesday, the Argentine Adorni testimony the same day, and the May 31 Colombian first round all sit downstream of an oil-price trajectory that no Latin American government can control. The Council on Foreign Relations summary from earlier in the war remains the cleanest framing: “neither country will lose face by opening Hormuz — as long as the other one does the same.” This week tests whether that mutual-reciprocity logic finally breaks the deadlock or whether it deepens it.

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