00:00President Donald Trump says his latest offer of talks is a, quote, last chance for Iran.
00:06Tehran denied negotiations with Washington, but says talks with Oman to get more ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz
00:14are making progress.
00:16Well, you don't know. I don't know. I think we're going to maybe get something.
00:20But I want to give him every last chance before decapitation.
00:24It's very tough to do what we have planned, still planned.
00:29And we'll see what happens. But it's a very, very tough thing to do.
00:33I think I'm very proud of the fact that I will give people a chance.
00:38This is a big move to do an attack that big on a country.
00:43I'd rather not do it.
00:47For more on this story, we're bringing in Stuart Livingstone Wallace, Bloomberg's executive editor for the Middle East, North Africa
00:53and Russia.
00:55Stuart, here we go again. I feel like we've been starting our segments with that line every single day for
01:01the past few weeks.
01:02Are those talks actually happening like President Trump has said they were?
01:07There's very little evidence that they are.
01:09Or at least let's conflate two different negotiations.
01:12So you have the ones going on between Oman and Iran.
01:15That is a real thing.
01:16That seems to be making progress.
01:18And you've had that sort of rhetoric coming out of both sides.
01:21Basically, to find this new path through Hormuz, quite how it's governed and fees and so on remains to be
01:27seen.
01:27However, the optimism you should derive from that is if you can fix that problem, you get Hormuz reopened, which
01:33admittedly is a ways off.
01:34But let's assume we get there.
01:36That actually takes the pressure off enormously in terms of the global economy and in terms of Trump's, I think,
01:42determination to act.
01:43In other words, that will give everyone a bit of breathing space.
01:46This other line of talks that may or may not be taking place depends who you believe.
01:49Do you believe the U.S. president or do you believe the Iranians or do you believe the mediators?
01:53So I think probably what's going on is that the people in the middle, that is the sort of the
01:57Saudi, the Qatar, the Pakistan, Turkey, etc., probably are doing outreach on behalf of both sides.
02:04Quite what that looks like, we don't know.
02:06So the Strait of Hormuz, Stuart, we are seeing Brent crude prices and other energy products as well rising this
02:13morning.
02:14They're really still moving in tandem with the geopolitical headlines.
02:17That talk or those talks that are happening between Oman and Iran, first of all, we understand that they're going
02:23to have a temporary effect on the Strait of Hormuz, so opening a middle passageway.
02:28What else do we know about what exactly Iran is trying to do there?
02:32I mean, ultimately, I think Iran would like to maintain control, total control over Hormuz.
02:37That is clearly what it would like.
02:40What it may settle for, perhaps, is some sort of joint custody with Oman.
02:44So in other words, the two literal states have some sort of joint authority.
02:48Quite, again, what that looks like, we don't know.
02:50But the contrast to draw here is between, as you say, the energy markets that are up and down like
02:54a yo-yo, and weirdly enough, look at the prediction markets that are flat as a pancake.
02:58They've moved up like one or two percentage points.
03:00So we're in a strange situation where the prediction markets are calmer than the energy markets, which is unusual.
03:06That is fascinating.
03:07It feels like they've moved on.
03:09We're just waiting for energy markets to kind of start looking beyond those headlines every single day.
03:14Sir, thank you, as always, for your time.
03:17Stuart Livingstone-Wallace, Bloomberg's executive editor for the Middle East, North Africa and Russia.
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