Iran 60-day deadline has passed. What does Trump do now?

Dubai: The 60-day clock has run out on Donald Trump’s Iran deal. Now the US president faces a harder question: What does he do next?

The memorandum of understanding signed by the United States and Iran in June was supposed to provide a pathway out of the war. It envisioned an end to hostilities, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and negotiations leading to a permanent settlement of the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Sixty days later, none of those objectives has been achieved.

Hormuz remains heavily restricted, substantive nuclear negotiations have failed to produce a breakthrough and the two countries are further apart than when the agreement was signed.

Instead of negotiating their way out of the conflict, Washington and Tehran increasingly appear to be trying to force the other side to break first.

“This is why it’s a game of chicken but the stakes are very different,” Ali Vaez, deputy programme director for Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, told CNN on Monday.

The US, he said, has chosen to try to “bring Iran to its knees” and is willing to accept some of the resulting economic fallout.

Iran views the stakes differently.

“At any cost, they are very unlikely to capitulate and to give in because they believe that that would be the end of the regime,” Vaez said.

That leaves Trump with three difficult paths — and none offers a quick way out.

For now, this appears to be Washington’s preferred strategy.

The Trump administration has rescinded sanctions waivers that had allowed Iranian oil exports during the brief truce and reimposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

Trump has made clear that economic pain is part of the strategy.

“We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” he said earlier this month.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also signalled that Washington intends to intensify the pressure, saying the US would apply measures that have “never been seen” against Iran.

Iran is already preparing for the consequences.

First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref has ordered intensified market supervision, including tougher action against overpricing, hoarding and traders selling underweight goods.

The calculation in Washington is straightforward: Squeeze Iran’s economy hard enough and Tehran will eventually return to the negotiating table on American terms.

But that strategy carries a major risk.

Vaez argued that previous campaigns of economic pressure hardened Iran’s position rather than forcing it to capitulate.

Iran’s leaders are also making their own economic calculation: That they can endure the pain longer than Trump can tolerate the consequences of a prolonged Hormuz crisis.

Trump’s second option is to turn again to military force.

There have been no publicly reported US strikes on Iranian targets since late July, but the possibility of renewed attacks has never disappeared.

Trump has considered major military action against Iran on at least two occasions since the June agreement, but pulled back amid appeals from regional allies and concerns inside his administration about dwindling stocks of critical munitions.

A new offensive could potentially increase pressure on Tehran, but it would also expose American forces and US allies across the region to Iranian retaliation.

There is another problem: even a major military campaign might not reopen Hormuz.

Iran views control of the strait as its strongest remaining leverage over Washington. Bombing Tehran could therefore make it more, rather than less, determined to keep shipping restricted.

Escalation would also risk another surge in energy prices as Trump approaches November’s congressional elections.

That leaves diplomacy.

It may also be Trump’s most politically difficult option.

Iran has demanded an end to the US blockade, withdrawal of American forces from around Iran, reparations for war damage and other concessions before fully reopening Hormuz.

Tehran has also made clear that it does not envisage simply restoring the strait to its pre-war status as an open, toll-free waterway.

Trump has rejected those demands and insists Iran, rather than Washington, should pay reparations.

Yet diplomacy has not completely disappeared.

Vaez described it as “not dead but it is in dire straits”.

Pakistan, which played a central role in brokering the June agreement, has also said it is continuing efforts to bring Washington and Tehran back to the negotiating table.

The difficulty is finding something to negotiate about.

The June memorandum was only a page and a half long and did not resolve the fundamental disagreements between the two countries, Vaez noted.

Those disagreements are now returning to the foreground.

Lost amid the battle over Hormuz is the issue that helped propel the United States into war in the first place: Iran’s nuclear programme.

The June agreement essentially postponed the hardest nuclear questions for 60 days of negotiations.

That period has now expired without any publicly visible breakthrough.

The agreement therefore did not resolve the war’s central disputes. It temporarily deferred them.

Now the diplomatic clock has stopped, but two other clocks are still running.

Trump is betting that sanctions, the blockade and Iran’s economic problems will eventually force Tehran to compromise.

Iran is betting that disruption to Hormuz, pressure on global energy markets and the approaching US midterm elections will force Trump to move first.

Neither side appears ready to blink.

The question after the 60-day deadline is therefore no longer whether the June agreement can deliver peace.

It is which side can withstand the pressure longer — and what happens if neither gives way.