Oil prices edged up, and stocks wavered Tuesday as Donald Trump weighed an Iranian proposal that would reportedly reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the eight-week-old war.
Investors were also gearing up for key central bank meetings and earnings reports from Wall Street giants this week.
Tehran was reported to have passed “written messages” to Washington via Pakistan, spelling out its red lines in peace talks, including on its nuclear programme and the future of the crucial waterway.
The White House said the US president and his team met Monday to discuss the offer, but spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt refused to say if Trump would accept the proposal.
Iran’s proposed interim deal is said to see it reopen the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of oil and LNG usually flows — in exchange for Washington ending its blockade of Iranian ports.
The plan also postpones more complex negotiations over its nuclear programme, a major sticking point for Trump.
Hopes for a deal had been rising going into last weekend, but Trump dashed them on Saturday by scrapping a planned trip by his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Islamabad.
Iran’s envoy to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, told a Security Council session the country would first need guarantees Washington and Israel would not attack again if it were to offer security assurances in the Gulf.
But Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran’s stance on the Strait of Hormuz did not meet US demands.
“If what they mean by opening the straits is, ‘yes, the straits are open as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission or we’ll blow you up and you pay us,’ that’s not opening the straits,” Rubio told Fox News.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin told Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that Russia would do everything it could to halt the Middle East war, as the two met in Saint Petersburg.
Oil prices extended gains Tuesday, with Brent heading back towards $110 a barrel, while stock markets struggled.
Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Sydney led losses, though there were gains in Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, and Jakarta.
