The Duran Podcast - US-Iran Deal or NO DEAL. July Energy Tipping Point

Episode Date: May 30, 2026

US-Iran Deal or NO DEAL. July Energy Tipping Point

All right, Alexander, let's discuss the situation with Iran and the back and forth that is going on between the United States and Iran, Pakistan mediating. We have more terms that are being floated out there by both sides. We have strikes into Iran and retaliatory strikes from Iran. The United States is saying that these strikes are in self-defense. We have the war that continues in Lebanon, which also prohibits any movement towards any kind of a deal between the United States and Iran. If we are to assume that they want a deal, I continue to believe, and you also talk about it in your videos, that this is very much a waiting game, a stalemate. awaiting who can outweigh the other it seems yes but but as all this is going on there the war does continue uh in Lebanon and um and that doesn't show any signs of uh of moving towards any kind of

of a ceasefire so uh how do you see the the situation have we changed anything have we changed anything from our last where we were from our last video doesn't seem like it i think you i think you summed it up very well and your your last point is, in my opinion, spot on because this is an extremely frustrating situation altogether. Now, there is a lot of talk about negotiations, and the first thing people need to understand is that in fact and in reality there are no negotiations in any accepted sense of the word going on. There is Pakistan, which is supposed to be mediating between Iran and the United States. And I don't know what actual role in terms of providing ideas the Pakistanis are playing.

I don't get the sense that they're doing anything much about that at all. So what Pakistan basically is, is it's a courier service. So it picks up messages from the Americans, which it then sends to Iran. It picks up messages from Iran, which it then sends on to the United States. It's a good way of describing it. It's not, we don't have meetings. There's no, you know, delegations in Islamabad. I mean, that is all that's all that's happening.

So you get these long, you know, not only particularly long, these proposals that the American send, that the Iranians send. And, well, at the center of this, there's this document, which I get the sense the Iranians largely drafted, but there may have been some input from the American side, which is this so-called Memorandum of Understanding. This is basically an attempt to extend the ceasefire and to get actual negotiations going. But what always happens is whenever we get close to a point where Donald Trump might be thinking about signing this memorandum of understanding, which, to be clear, is only to extend the ceasefire.

It really isn't to do anything beyond that. We then get Trump backs off. He hears from Netanyahu. He hears from all of the other hardliners in Washington. He comes back and says, this is unacceptable. The memorandum of understanding doesn't include the massive concessions from the Iranians on the nuclear enrichment issue. that they're still insisting on. And the result is that it doesn't get signed. But we are not

progressing. We are not moving forward with this. And in the meantime, exactly as you said, each side is trying to wait out the other. Each side from time to time hits at the other. So the US tried to get some tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians launched drones to stop the tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The tankers actually appeared a turn round. The United States responded with an attack on the launch points of those Iranian drones. The Iranians then retaliated with attacks of their own. against an American base, and then everything reverts to the same state of unstable equilibrium

that we've already have. In the meantime, this battle in Lebanon continues between Hezbollah and Israel, and here I think we are absolutely justified in talking about stalemate, in the sense that Israel conducts a lot of bombing, there's a great deal of fighting going on in southern Lebanon, but so far, all Israeli attempts to break through against Hezbollah have been unsuccessful. And despite the fact that this is an intense and very fierce battle, because it's a stalemate, it's not getting the attention that it ought to. And you're absolutely correct. The fact that that is continuing is another factor which is preventing progress with the memorandum. Memorandum of Understanding, because the Iranians say that a ceasefire has to be global.

It has to involve the fighting in Lebanon. It has to stop the fighting in Lebanon as well. So this is where we are. It is extraordinarily frustrating. There is a document on the table, which, from what I can tell, this is the memorandum of its understanding, has not really been changed. or amended very much for about two or three weeks now. All it needs is Donald Trump's signature that he doesn't want to sign it.

Does he want to change it? Yeah. I mean, have they come out with counter offers to it? Do you know? What Trump has been trying to do, rather what he's the people around him have been trying to get him to do and what he plays along with is he wants to fold into the memorandum. of understanding, which is simply an attempt to extend the current ceasefire by another 30 to 60

days and to provide conditions for future negotiations, for real negotiations on the enrichment issue to take place. What you want to do is to fold into the memorandum of understanding fundamental concessions from the Iranians on the enrichment. issue, which the Iranians say is a topic they're only prepared to talk about in those negotiations. And the demands he makes, and I have to say this, I mean, they are maximalist. He says that Iran must hand over its stockpile. Sometimes he says, he suggests that it's the entire stockpile. Other times that part of the stockpile, which is uranium enriched above the 60% level.

But I think, in fact, and in reality, he means he will always, in the end, revert to a demand that it must be the entire stockpile. He wants the stockpile to be handed over by the Iranians to the United States. The Iranians have at times sort of danced around the possibility that they might, give part of their stockpile or even all of their stockpile either to Russia or China. But they will never give it to the United States. But Trump insists it must be the United States. And then he makes further statements saying that under no circumstances is the United States

going to lift sanctions on Iran, which from the Iranian point of view defeats the entire purpose of the negotiations. In effect, what he's trying to do is he's trying to get a ceasefire, which already concedes everything that the Americans have been demanding on the enrichment issue, which the Iranians have previously rejected. Now, in a kind of a sense, you could say, well, you know, this isn't such a big thing because we do still have a ceasefire. fire in place in the sense that, you know, we get these skirmishes, but there's at the moment no big battle. But of course, the effect is that the Strait of Hormuz remains essentially closed. Energy stocks are continuing to decline around the world.

The United States has its own blockade of Iran, which continues to take place. It's difficult for people outside Iran like us to say how effective that has been. But my sense is very far from as effective as Trump perhaps believes. And we're getting reports from the energy industry. And I read places like Orprice.com every day. They're saying that in June, June, July is going to be. be the tipping point. Unless we get a situation where we can be sure that the Strait of Hormuz is going to reopen and stay open, we are going to start to see severe global shortages of energy right

around the world and a major increase in energy prices in Europe and in the United States. So we don't have an unlimited amount of time. And this is something that Trump doesn't seem to be able to grapple with. Well, is he okay with the fact that the price of oil hovers at around the $100 range, give or take, 95, one day, 105, the next? It seems like the U.S. administration, Bessent, and Trump are fine with that. Do they believe that they can keep that price in there past July? And if so, do they consider that as a way to extend this waiting game all the way to say,

November, December, where perhaps they may feel like they'll be in a better position or they will have more leverage over Iran because Iran's economy will have deteriorated by December, say. So they're saying, let's keep it at 100. Can we keep that going until winter? And then we'll have real pressure to put on Iran. You see, this is where I think maybe that... Because it hasn't gone to 150.

That's my point. We haven't seen this 150 or 200. You are absolutely correct. And here it's important to point out that way back in April, if you remember, there were all kinds of people who were predicting that, in fact, not just all kinds of people, the vast majority of people who follow energy news were predicting that we would get $150 dollar oil in one week, two weeks, three weeks from the start of this. And we've never quite got that. And of course, the big question is why? Why have we not seen a $150 oil? And is that indeed

creating this belief in Washington on Trump's side and Besson's side that we're never going to get there and that a hundred dollar a barrel oil is bearable at least it's bearable in the United States and we don't have to worry now I have to say this I've been again reading what they've been saying in the trade journals and they say that one reason why we've never got to a hundred and fifty dollar oil is because oil is being released constantly from the stockpiles. And we've got stockpiles all around the world. And this is why they're saying that June, July is going to be the moment of crisis,

because that's when the stockpiles start to fall below critical levels. That may be true. I have to say, I have a further view. And it is purely my own view. I can't confirm this. But I suspect that this is right. And I am going to make a guess that there's been an awful lot of intervention, you know, behind the scenes in the financial markets by the US authorities, probably with some assistance from, you know, private financial institutions to make sure that. the long-term price of oil continues to remain low. In other words, people are buying, are trading

oil and are doing it in a way that keeps futures prices low. Now, again, I want to stress, I don't know this. So, you know, I don't want to give the impression that I know more than I do. But for this to be happening in the way that it is, I think that has to be the explanation. Now, that, of course, can be done for quite a long time, but it must be costing someone, if I am right, an awful lot of money. And it may be costing US taxpayers an awful lot of money in the sense that there might be a debt build up of some kind going on. Now, if I am right about this, then you can play this game for a while, probably quite a long time. You can do it also by keeping things off books.

We all know that accounting operations can be done, and they're not necessarily illegal. But of course, if all shortages do start, and we do start to see an irresistible push-up of energy prices, sometime in the autumn, then I'm going to make a guess that a lot of these trades that may be depressing the price of oil have not been properly covered. And then we're going to see problems, further problems in the financial system and in the credit system of the US government itself. I want to stress again, I don't want, you know, to pretend that I know this. for a fact. But I can't really come up with any other explanation for the fact that energy oil prices have remained stuck at $100 a barrel for so long. I can't explain it to my own mind

in any other way, given that, as I said, oil shortages continue to increase around the world. Yeah, it's, I mean, if your guess is correct, it's a dangerous game because eventually the reality is going to catch up. Right. So, I mean, you know, and when it does catch up, it's going to be pretty bad. But we do know that the United States is dipping into their strategic petroleum reserves. They are drawing from the SPR, which is also a dangerous game. and we do know that stockpiles are starting to run low. So the question becomes, how long can the U.S. keep this going?

The Trump administration has signaled that it's not concerned with the pain that Americans feel for the moment, at the moment. They have elections in November, but Trump has basically said, he's come out there and said, I'm not really worried about the financial situation of American citizens for now. When does he and the Republican Party and the ruling elite? When do they start to worry about the situation of American citizens' finances? They couldn't give an F about what's happening in Europe or anywhere else in the world, nor do the Europeans care. They don't even talk about fuel shortages or petroleum gas prices. They may be care. They don't mention it. They don't discuss it.

It doesn't bother them one bit. So it's really about the United States and how long the U.S. can keep this thing going, whatever this thing is, that they have going. Can I just say something about the Europeans? You're completely right about the Europeans. I mean, gas reserves in Europe are also at low levels. I mean, not perhaps critically low levels, but at low levels. And I understand that less and less gas is being injected into the reserves because there's less gas there's less gas altogether around. You would have thought that this was a matter of massive concern for the European leadership. And yet there's no sign that it is.

They seem to be completely unfazed about this. It's not as if they're doing very much about this. I mean, you know, if we start to see energy prices start to rise in the autumn, well, there is no plan ahead to prepare for that possibility. And the same applies to oil and to other things. But as you rightly say, if we're talking about the United States, Trump and Bessent and all of the others, they don't care at all what happens in Europe, in Asia, anywhere else. It is the United States itself.

Now, you see, this is the problem. I can't say when all of this is going to get really hard. All I can do is look at what the people in the industry are saying. They're saying that in June, July, we're going to pass the... tipping point, that the situation with the petroleum reserves is going to become critical. And from that moment, we are no longer talking about higher prices of oil. We are talking about oil shortages. And when you get oil shortages, the only way to ration oil effectively is by allowing the price to rise.

So if you follow that thinking, then we are talking about the summer. And I don't think, actually, that the Republican Party is as comfortable with this situation as Donald Trump and Bessent are. Again, I don't know what's going on within the administration. But, you know, I would not be surprised if Bessent is coming along to Trump and telling him, look, I'm doing all of these very clever things of the financial markets. I'm the person who knows how to do these things. I've done them before in my life. I can keep this thing steady for months and months. Trump assumes that this is so, and he's happy about it. He sees that, you know, the stock markets continue to rise. He sees that the boom. in technology stocks continues. He's very comfortable about this. And perhaps he's also being told

that the Iranians have a very limited time window that in two or three months or even sooner, things are going to start to get really bad in Iran. Now, that may be complacent on all sides. It may be that Iran's endurance is far greater than Trump and Bessent imagine. Bear in mind that one of the big story about this whole crisis from the start is a massive underestimation of Iran and its ability to withstand the kind of blows that the United States has rained down on it. So it may be that they again, underestimating the resilience of Iran's economy. and the amount of help and support that Iran is getting from its allies. So they may be miscalculating there, and they may be miscalculating

about their ability to keep this whole thing spinning on for weeks and months all the way up to November and perhaps beyond. Personally, I would be surprised if we are still in a situation, where the Strait of Hormuz remains essentially closed. If we don't get real stresses in the global economy, in financial markets, in energy markets, really starting to express themselves by summer. I mean, I've been looking at, as I said, what the industry is saying,

and they are all united in saying this now. Keep in mind that you also have outside of Bessent, telling this to Trump, you also have Israel and Adiahu telling this to Trump, as well. Iran's going to collapse. Forget about a peace deal. What we need to do is actually ramp up the escalation. You need to restart the military operations. One more push, one more strike from the United States, and Iran's going to crumble. So you have Israel as well, Netanyahu whispering all of this to Trump and Trump. I just said he feels comfortable with it and he buys into it.

And we are, you know, in the situation that we find ourselves in where effectively the problem is that the United States is that the military is squatting in the area, right? They're not going to leave. This is what I think about often is, you know, you have these negotiations and it's going to be difficult for Iran to get the United States to pull back from their blockade as well. You know, once a squatter enters your home, your apartment, whatever. it's hard to get them out. I mean, I don't see the incentive for the United States to stop the blockade, to lift the

blockade. And then you have signals from Trump, where I read what Trump is saying as very much in line with we want to control the straight of whore moose, or at least we want to watch over it. We don't want anyone else to watch over it. We want to take control of it. Yes. Well, let's start, first of all, with Netanyahu. And, of course, I mean, he's been selling the story for at least.

two years now, ever since Israel first launched its attacks on Iran and on Hezbollah, that the Iranians and the Hezbollah are massively damaged, that there are a house of cards, they're about to collapse. Well, we've seen over the last weeks that he massively oversold that. I mean, Iran did not collapse. There was no collapse within a couple of days or within a week. Iran was able to close the Strait of Hormuz, which apparently he told Trump they wouldn't be able to do. And yet Trump still listens to him.

He still pays attention to what Netanyahu is saying. I have to say this, it reminds me so much of Europe about Russia, that the Russians are a house of cards, that all we need to do is just keep doing what we are doing, you know, go for sanctions number 27 or whatever it is that they've reached now. And this will be the one that will finally tip the balance over and lead to the collapse in Russia. We can't be wrong about this. We've analysed it. We've researched it.

We must be right. It must be about to happen. And I can't help but feel that this is exactly the same now with the Israelis. And some people in the United States about Iran, they are far too heavily invested in this, far too psychologically invested in this, to believe that Iran actually can withstand these blows and is not a house of cards. And I'm afraid one of the people who's invested in this is Trump himself. He still believes, I think, that if he holds out just a few more weeks, just a few more months, everything's going to come right. There's going to be protests in the streets.

The Ayatollahs are going to lose control. The IRGC will fracture. The army will turn its guns against the regime, that kind of thing. I don't believe this is going to happen. I think if it was going to happen, we would have seen it happen by now. But, you know, they still cling to this belief. In Trump's position, you know, I'm sure neither of us would be giving Netanyahu the time of day. When he comes with this story, we would say, well, look, everything that you've predicted up to now has turned out to be wrong.

Just as we would be saying to all of those people who came and told us that Russia was about to collapse. every 2022, we would be telling them by now. We wouldn't be giving them by now the time of day. But we see both in Europe and in the United States that they can't leave this behind them. So that is one thing about the Iranians and about having the US Navy squatting in the neighborhood. You are, of course, absolutely right. people again are talking about Iran's military capabilities, but of course they neglect the fact that the United States still has massive military capabilities. Iran is not in a position

to force the United States out of the region. It can't defeat the U.S. Navy and the U.S. military in that sort of way. I mean, there's been lots of reports and rumors and stuff. stories about Iranian drones hitting American warships, none of which have been confirmed, by the way. But what we actually see is that the U.S. Navy is still there in the Gulf of Amman, in the Arabian Sea, and there is nothing that Iran can do about it. The only leverage they have over the United States, which is admittedly big, is they still retain control of the Strait of Hormuz, and they are able to put this enormous pressure on America's Persian Gulf Allies. And by the way, just to say, there is also a factor of pressure on the US also.

The US can't completely ignore the pain, the Saudis, the Qataris, the Emirates, the Kuwaitis are suffering from. and the Persian Gulf states are showing that they are suffering this pain and that they are angry with the Americans. Firstly, by having talks, quiet talks with the Iranians, those are not leading anywhere, but also by the fact that they haven't paid any money into Donald Trump's board of peace, which as a result remains without any funds. Yeah, well, the main bank account remains without any funds according to the financial times. There's something else going on. Once again, according to the financial times, without much transparency.

But anyway, a different video for a different time. A different video for a different time. All right, we'll end the video there at the durand.com. We're on X, we're on Rumble, we're on Telegram. We are also on substack. Go to the Durant shop, pick up some merch. Links are in the description box down below. Take care.