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President Trump and Vice President Vance are staring down a number of major challenges in the U.S.-Iran negotiations, despite signs of progress being reported from the first round of talks on Sunday.
Vance said Monday that “a very good foundation” had been laid in the initial talks, during which Vance said Iran agreed to invite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) back into the country.
Additionally, he noted the talks established mechanisms to demine the Strait of Hormuz and to settle a regional ceasefire that would include Lebanon.
The vice president acknowledged there was “a little bit of threatening” and “a little bit of whining,” but he said at the end, “great progress” was made.
Still, significant questions surrounding the negotiations remain, including how to navigate Israel’s insistence on targeting the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as how to keep the Strait of Hormuz permanently open going forward.
Oil prices plunged following the developments and as traffic through the strait increased, with the international benchmark Brent crude falling to $78 per barrel and the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate falling to $74 per barrel.
The Strait of Hormuz’s opening remains tenuous. Iran threatened to close it Saturday over Israeli strikes in Lebanon.
“The key going forward is providing just enough relief to Iran to prevent the regime from reversing its current death spiral trajectory while relieving the pressure of Hormuz on the global energy market,” said Richard Goldberg, Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior adviser and former National Security Council director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction, in a statement.
Sabrina Singh, former Pentagon deputy press secretary during the Biden administration, noted that traffic through the strait will ultimately depend on how comfortable shipping companies are with transiting through the waterway.
“If shipping companies feel that it is safe to transit the strait, they will do it,” she said. “Even though the United States military has cleared the southern shipping lane and they’re saying that the strait is open, that does not guarantee safety and security for shippers.”
Alan Eyre, distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute, said there are two main threats to the potential peace deal: Israel’s military agenda against Iran and Trump’s social media agenda.
Israel’s attacks on Lebanon stand to be one of the biggest challenges facing negotiators at the moment. U.S. and Iranian negotiators agreed to the establishment of a “deconfliction zone” in Lebanon in an effort to hold the ceasefire.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said in a Monday post on the social platform X that Israel would respect the ceasefire in Lebanon as long as it is not breached by Hezbollah, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maintained in a Monday statement that Israel will stay in its “security zone” in Lebanon for as long as it takes to protect Israelis from the militant group.
“The directive from me and the Defence Minister to the IDF is clear and has not changed: our forces in southern Lebanon have full freedom of action to thwart any direct or emerging threat against them or against the residents of northern Israel. The IDF faces no restrictions in this matter,” Netanyahu said, referring to the Israeli military.
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi called the Lebanon deconfliction zone “the first real test” of the negotiations on Monday.
Will Todman, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Lebanon “has one of the greatest abilities to derail this process of negotiations.”
“Iran made the MOU and this peace agreement contingent on a ceasefire in Lebanon,” Singh said, referencing the memorandum of understanding with the U.S.
“Here’s the problem: Both sides can claim at any time that the other side started it,” she continued. “It’s very complicated. It’s very, very difficult, and ultimately, that is going to be a real test.”
Denuclearization will also prove to be an obstacle during negotiations. Despite Vance’s announcement that Iran has allowed IAEA inspectors into the country, Iranian state media reported Iran’s negotiating team had not confirmed the move.
Trump, in turn, appeared to push back on the reports in a post on Truth Social.
“Everybody is fully aware that Iran will agree to have Major Weapons Inspections in order to ensure ‘Nuclear Honesty’ long into the future,” Trump wrote.
But even with weapons inspections, some are skeptical Iran letting the IAEA in would make a significant difference.
“Iran is a part of the nonproliferation treaty,” Singh said. “This is a standard that all countries have to abide by.”
Iran halted its cooperation with the IAEA in 2025 after the U.S. and Israel conducted joint airstrikes on its facilities. The agency’s inspectors have not seen nuclear material since, but it’s estimated that the country has close to enough enriched uranium to make a bomb.
“It’s great that we’re getting back to something that already should have been in place, but we don’t know more about what this means for rigorous inspections, and on top of that, we are giving them economic sanctions relief and waivers upfront,” Singh said, referring to the administration’s move to temporarily lift Iranian sanctions on Iranian oil.
Eyre said trust between the U.S. and Iran plays into what Iran allows.
“It’s one thing to let the IAEA in a country, it’s another to let them inspect the key facilities that they need to inspect,” Eyre said. “I would be surprised if Iran allows the latter right up front. Iran’s whole methodology for these ongoing discussions is what they call commitment for commitment.”
Others argue Washington’s biggest challenge in negotiations could be Trump himself.
Iranian state media said Sunday that talks had paused after the “publication of an insulting message by the U.S. President,” according to reports.
The first point of the memorandum talks about the U.S. and Iran refraining from “the threat or use of force against each other.”
“Part of the biggest challenges facing negotiators is Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts,” Singh said.
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