The Strait of Hormuz remains closed after Iran refused to soften its seven-day reopening proposal, while President Donald Trump rejected Tehran's latest terms and signaled that negotiations could resume this week — leaving the world's most critical energy chokepoint shut with no deal in sight.

Trump told Axios in an interview on Sunday that the conditions Iran wants are something Washington might have agreed to about a year ago, and that Tehran has overplayed its hand. He rejected Iran's proposal but said he expects talks to restart this week, Axios reported.

"They made a proposal but I rejected it," Trump said Saturday as he departed the White House. "They want to make a deal where they open the strait immediately because they're losing so badly."

For shippers, carriers and forwarders with exposure to Gulf routes, the standoff extends an open-ended disruption at the chokepoint that normally carries a large share of the world's seaborne crude and LNG. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week that his country will not allow freedom of navigation through the strait while sanctions and a US blockade remain in place — a statement that removes any near-term expectation of a unilateral reopening.

Iran puts the onus on Washington

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Saturday, in comments carried by state-run broadcaster IRIB, that Tehran is still awaiting a definitive US response to its demands and has yet to receive anything from mediators Qatar and Pakistan.

"The US president has made some good remarks as well as many contradictory ones, which unfortunately we hear from him frequently," Araghchi was quoted as saying.

Only a "negotiated solution" can resolve the impasse over the global energy bottleneck, he said.

Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Araghchi struck a defiant stance and placed the burden of concessions squarely on Washington. "We are ready to open the strait if certain things are done by the US," he said. "And these things are not new."

He added that while there is always room for negotiations, Iran has "no reason to come back to diplomacy and engage with this administration once again" because the US has repeatedly attacked Iran during Trump's second term. "We stand firm in the face of any aggression against us, even if it comes to a doomsday war," the minister said.

The shape of a possible deal

US and Iranian negotiators had been exploring an agreement under which Tehran would reopen the strait and Washington would lift its blockade of Iranian ports, according to a person familiar with the matter. The pact would have resembled the memorandum of understanding the two sides reached in mid-June, which produced a fragile ceasefire that soon collapsed.

That framework — strait access in exchange for sanctions relief — remains the reference point for any settlement. Until one is signed, tanker operators, Gulf port users and cargo owners face continued risk on approaches to Hormuz, and war-risk pricing across the region is unlikely to ease.

Pressure on Iran's oil lifeline

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued the US economic pressure campaign is working, and that China — the biggest buyer of Iranian oil — has "substantially reduced any assistance to Iran," increasing pressure on Tehran to cut a deal.

"Probably within the next two weeks, they're going to make their final delivery of oil to China and then they will have nothing," Bessent said on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures. "I believe that they are feeling the pressure here and that's why they want the deal."

If that timeline holds, Iran's fiscal room to keep the strait closed would narrow sharply by mid-October — a dynamic that may explain Tehran's push for a quick agreement even as it refuses to water down its terms.

Houthi attacks widen the front

The diplomatic stalemate is playing out against renewed hostilities by Iranian-backed groups. Saudi Arabia's capital came under Houthi attack on Saturday — the latest sign of proxies stepping up operations against US allies in the Middle East.

Saudi-backed coalition forces in Yemen said air defenses intercepted two drones launched toward Riyadh and a ballistic missile aimed at the southern border area of Khamis Mushait. About a week earlier, air-raid alerts sounded for Riyadh's residents for the first time since the height of hostilities in March and April, with air defenses intercepting missiles headed for the capital.

The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Trump expects to resume the bombing campaign against Iran after US midterm elections in early November and is skeptical Iran will meet his demands. Trump declined to answer when asked whether he would restart the bombings after the midterms.

Pezeshkian, for his part, said Iran will not give up what he called its right to develop nuclear technology for economic purposes.

With Trump rejecting Iran's terms, Araghchi refusing to soften them, and Bessent predicting Tehran's oil pipeline to China runs dry within two weeks, the most likely near-term trajectory is a resumption of talks this week — against a November deadline that could return the conflict to full military escalation if diplomacy fails.