Trump Announces Iran Talks for Monday, Tehran Denies Them
Trump says talks with Iran start Monday afternoon and that the Strait of Hormuz could reopen at once, while US officials and Tehran say no new negotiations are taking place at all.
President of the United States Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that talks with Iran begin Monday afternoon, that the first item on the agenda will be reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran’s denuclearization comes onto the table in the next phase. The same day, unnamed US officials told CBS News that no new negotiations begin on August 3, while an Iranian official said there are no plans to resume talks and that the situation in the strait remains unchanged. Serbia imports most of its oil, and prices at domestic pumps track the world market, so the gap between these two versions of events is felt here long before any political fallout would be.
Trump went a step further than the announcement itself. He claimed the strait could be fully reopened as early as the next day, meaning a single signature would be enough to normalize shipping through the only sea outlet from the Persian Gulf. The same logic ran through his claim that the United States had stopped an attack on Iran that, in his words, would have been the largest since World War Two.
He was blunt about Iran’s denials.
Iran is incredibly two faced. They begged for negotiations, and now they deny any negotiations are taking place at all.
That line is itself an admission that the two sides are not describing the same process. According to what US officials told CBS News, nothing new starts on Monday, only a continuation of the indirect contacts that envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are already holding with Iranian representatives. The difference between an indirect channel and an announced start of talks is not a matter of wording: the first carries no obligation to be reported at all, the second implies a date, a location and named participants, and Trump gave reporters none of the three.
What is actually happening in the strait?
The picture from the water does not match Trump’s optimism. US Central Command said more than 40 vessels have been rerouted during the blockade of Iranian ports, which means traffic in that part of the Gulf is already being diverted, not opened up. The same Iranian official repeated that day that the situation in the strait is unchanged.
For shipping companies this is a practical matter, not a diplomatic one. A rerouted course means longer sailing times, higher insurance premiums and costlier cargo in the end, none of which is undone by a statement made on a plane. We wrote yesterday about Tehran keeping control of the strait even after Trump’s announcements of a deal, alongside Iran’s denial that anyone from Tehran had sought talks in the first place.
Last chance or preparation for a strike
In the same tone he used to announce the talks, Trump also described the alternative.
This is their last chance to sign a good document. I want to give them every last opportunity before decapitation.
He added a line about a total blockade as well.
Nothing gets into Iran unless we want it to, and nothing will get in unless there is a deal or total surrender.
That same August 3, the US Department of Defense signed contracts with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to quadruple production of interceptor missile components. A contract of that scale is not the kind of paper signed for a conflict expected to end by Monday afternoon. Production lines for air defense munitions are planned in years, not days, and that is the most concrete signal Washington gave that day about its own expectations.
How the week arrived at Monday
The weekend before the announcement had three turning points.
- On Friday, Iran’s military struck US targets at Ahmad al Jaber air base in Kuwait
- On Saturday, Trump canceled planned strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure, citing progress in the talks, after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked him to hold off
- On Sunday evening, the announcement of talks came, with no details on location or participants
At the same time, Reuters reported that Iran had executed two people accused of working for Israel. A government carrying out executions for espionage in the same week is not behaving like one preparing a public signing with Washington, but like one shoring up its internal front.
Why this matters for Belgrade
The Strait of Hormuz is the only sea outlet from the Persian Gulf, so any disruption there enters the price of a barrel before it enters any official statement. Serbia is not a party to this story, but it is a buyer in a market priced far from Belgrade, and any prolonged closure of the strait eventually reaches domestic pumps and transport costs, meaning prices that show up in the statistics a month or two later.
That is why the version Washington chooses matters more than the tone it is delivered in. If by the end of Monday no meeting has been confirmed to have started, what stands is what Iranian officials and unnamed sources inside the US administration are saying, and that means the blockade of Iranian ports, not the negotiating table, is the only process actually underway right now.
