By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-28 11:08:23 | Updated at 2026-09-28 18:35:17
7 hours ago
Oil prices rose on Monday morning, after President Donald Trump rejected a seven-day plan from Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for resuming nuclear talks with Washington.
Trump said on Sunday that he expects talks with Iran to resume this week, while declining to rule out military strikes before the U.S. midterm elections.
Brent crude futures rose by $2.60 to $106.92 a barrel at 3:03 a.m. ET on Monday, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was up $2.08 to $94.49 a barrel.
Hamad Hussain, a senior climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics in London, said the rises appeared to be a knee-jerk response to the weekend’s political events.
“Oil prices appeared to have jumped on the back of President Trump rejecting Iran’s peace proposal,” Hussain said.
The conflict, which began on Feb. 28, has disrupted oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane, but on Sunday, Trump said a record amount of oil was transported through the strait.
The president also doubled down on his promise that oil and gas prices will dip in the future.
“Oil will come dropping down as soon as Iran gives up, as soon as the war is over, oil is going to come plummeting down, and oil prices are coming down,” Trump said.
On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi proposed, via Qatari mediators, a plan to restart nuclear talks and reopen the Strait of Hormuz under certain conditions, but Trump rejected it on Saturday.
“They want to make a deal, and I think that’s fine. I like making a deal too. But that deal would not be acceptable,” he told reporters at the White House.
The U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, said on Sunday in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump had rejected the Iranian proposal because Tehran had demanded the lifting of sanctions and release of frozen assets as a prerequisite.
“So the bottom line is they were asking for everything up front with a promise that they would then talk,” Waltz said. “The president’s just not confident that the Iranians are coming in good faith and that they will truly negotiate the end of their nuclear program.”
The United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in June outlining a plan to end the conflict that began on Feb. 28.
However, the agreement collapsed after Iran attacked multiple commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and Trump ordered the U.S. military to reinstate its naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Araghchi appeared on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday, saying that Iran did not care about the midterm elections in the United States, or any other considerations other than its own national interests.
Iran Ready for ‘Doomsday War’
“We stand firm in the face of any aggression, even if it comes to a doomsday war,” Araghchi said. “At the same time we are ready for diplomacy.”
“Our conditions are clear, and any move toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz is contingent on these conditions being met, and we will not back down from them,” Araghchi told Iranian reporters on Sunday, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry website.
Trump stated in April that the operational objectives of Operation Epic Fury were to permanently disable Iran’s ability to project power outside its own borders, and to keep it from ever having a nuclear weapon.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (L) looks on during the 81st session of the U.N. General Assembly at U.N. Headquarters in New York on Sept. 23, 2026. Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
On Thursday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly, again denied Tehran was seeking a nuclear weapon.
He also told Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” that the United States had to decide if it wanted to end the conflict with Iran.
“We do not wish to continue. It’s America that must choose whether it wants to end this or not,” Pezeshkian said.
The United States, along with Israel, the UK, and the European Union, have all stated that Iran must not be able to develop a nuclear weapon.
Trump told Axios in a phone interview on Sunday that he expected more negotiations this week.
Iran ‘Overplayed Their Hand’: Trump
“I expect more talks with Iran. They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make. It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago,” Trump said. “They overplayed their hand.”
Referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement the Obama administration negotiated with Tehran in 2015, Araghchi told NBC that the United States withdrew from it “without justification.”
Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA in 2018, calling it a “horrible, one-sided deal that should have never been made.”
“America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail,” Trump said on May 8, 2018.
Araghchi was pressed by NBC’s Kristen Welker on why Iran needed uranium enriched to 60 percent, when only 3–5 percent enrichment is required for generating electricity by nuclear power, and whether Iran would agree to the United States removing the highly enriched uranium to end the war.
Araghchi said the highly enriched uranium was for “peaceful purposes” and he insisted it was not “illegal.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
