President Trump has abandoned interest in renewing the interim memorandum of understanding negotiated with Iran in June, choosing instead to pursue sanctions aimed at forcing Tehran into submission on its nuclear programme and the Strait of Hormuz, according to sources familiar with the strategy. Trump said plainly that we do not want to speak to them, we are not looking to meet or anything.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has presented a sanctions package targeting Iran's digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping sectors, with secondary sanctions reaching entities in the UAE, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Europe that transport Iranian oil. Asked whether Chinese banks were being sanctioned, Trump would not confirm it directly, saying who said I am not, you do not know if I am doing it, I do not have to announce everything.
Mediation has not produced an alternative. Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani held talks with Iran on Thursday alongside Pakistani efforts, and neither moved the diplomacy forward. Former Mossad chief David Barnea said there is no choice but to intensify the economic, diplomatic and operational actions until the Iranian regime falls, a description that matches the sanctions path Trump appears to have chosen over the interim deal.
The blockade Washington launched in April is already producing fuel shortages and gas rationing inside Iran, which Iranian officials have dismissed as failed policies even as they feel them. An interim agreement offered a floor beneath the pressure. Choosing sanctions over its renewal removes that floor, and Tehran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi is now negotiating with a Washington that has stopped pretending it wants to negotiate at all.