President Donald Trump turned a conference call about ending the U.S.-Iran conflict into a direct challenge to Arab leaders: normalize relations with Israel, or forget about Washington brokering a peace deal. Leaders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt said nothing in response, according to a leaked account of the Saturday call reported by the Daily Mail.
The silence was so complete that Trump cracked a nervous joke, "Are they still there?", before pressing ahead. He announced that envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff would follow up on Israel normalization in the weeks ahead.
The call, which centered on progress toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz and winding down the U.S.-Iran war, marked the clearest signal yet that Trump intends to use the Iran negotiations as leverage to expand the Abraham Accords he brokered in 2020. Whether Arab capitals will cooperate, or whether the linkage will complicate both tracks, remains an open question.
A deal "largely negotiated", then stalled
Trump had announced that an Iranian peace agreement was "largely negotiated" but "subject to finalization." By Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that peace talks between the U.S. and Iran had stalled over Tehran's uranium stockpile and the unfreezing of billions in Iranian assets.
Iran's own characterization of the deal differed sharply from the White House framing. Tehran said the agreement under negotiation does not include immediate concessions on its nuclear program, only a commitment to discuss the issue during a 60-day window. The current talks, Iran said, are centered on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
That gap matters. Trump wrote on Truth Social that any deal would be "the exact opposite of the JCPOA disaster negotiated by the failed Obama Administration, which was a direct and open path to a Nuclear Weapon for Iran." But if Iran's description is accurate, the nuclear question is being deferred, not resolved, a structure that critics of the 2015 JCPOA would find uncomfortably familiar.
Trump pulled the U.S. out of that Obama-era agreement during his first term, calling it fatally flawed. The question now is whether his second-term deal will produce something fundamentally different or merely rearrange the same pieces on the board.
The Abraham Accords gambit
Trump's demand to the Arab leaders was not a casual aside. It was the centerpiece of his Saturday pitch. After discussing Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, he pivoted to Israel normalization, and the line went quiet.
The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020, normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. Trump has long sought to expand them, and the prize has always been Saudi Arabia. But Israel's standing among Arab nations has dropped sharply since the Gaza war, which has reportedly killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
That political reality helps explain the silence on the call. Arab leaders face domestic audiences deeply hostile to normalization while the conflict in Gaza continues. Trump's framing, join the Accords or lose American help on Iran, puts them in a bind, but it does not change the street-level politics they face at home.
The pattern fits a broader Trump approach to foreign policy: high-stakes phone calls designed to force movement, with public pressure applied through social media if private diplomacy stalls.
Truth Social as a diplomatic channel
Trump followed the Saturday call with a Sunday post on Truth Social thanking Middle Eastern countries for their "support and cooperation, which will be further enhanced and strengthened by their joining the Nations of the historic Abraham Accords."
Then came the kicker:
"Who knows, perhaps the Islamic Republic of Iran would like to join, as well!"
The suggestion that Iran, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, might join a normalization pact was provocative by design. It served as a public marker of Trump's ambitions, even if no one in Tehran or Riyadh takes it literally.
By Monday, with talks stalled, Trump's tone shifted. He posted a meme on Truth Social and wrote separately that the Strait of Hormuz "will be opened" as part of the agreement. He also urged Iran to "understand" that it could not develop a nuclear weapon, and vowed the U.S. and Iran would reach "a great and meaningful" agreement or "there will be no deal."
The president described the U.S. relationship with Iran as "becoming a much more professional and productive one." That characterization came even as negotiations hit a wall in Doha, where Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived Monday for continued talks, AFP reported.
Oil markets moved first
Whatever the diplomatic status, financial markets treated the prospect of a deal as real. Brent crude dropped to $97 per barrel, its lowest price in more than a month, on hopes that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. The Japanese financial newswire Nikkei reported that Iran is set to open the strait within 30 days after securing a deal with the U.S.
The Strait of Hormuz is the world's most important oil chokepoint. Its closure during the U.S.-Iran conflict rattled energy markets and drove prices higher. A reopening would ease pressure on global oil supply and, by extension, on American consumers paying elevated fuel costs.
That economic leverage gives Trump a powerful card. Arab oil-producing states benefit from high prices, but they also need stable shipping lanes and American security guarantees. Trump's willingness to walk away from negotiations, as he demonstrated when Iran delivered a revised proposal minutes after he canceled a separate summit, keeps all parties guessing about his next move.
Kushner and Witkoff take the lead
The announcement that Kushner and Witkoff would handle the Israel normalization follow-up signals that Trump views the Iran and Abraham Accords tracks as a single diplomatic package. Both envoys have led negotiations across multiple fronts during Trump's second term, including Iran, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the Israel-Gaza situation.
UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, whose country was the first Abraham Accords signatory, told Trump he supported the deal to end the war, Axios reported. That backing from an existing Accords member gives Trump at least one regional ally willing to publicly endorse the broader framework.
But the four nations on Saturday's call, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt, represent a far harder lift. None has normalized with Israel. Turkey, under President Erdogan, has been among the most vocal critics of Israeli military operations. Egypt has a cold peace with Israel dating to 1979 but faces enormous public pressure over Gaza.
Trump has signaled that Cuba could be his next diplomatic priority after Iran, suggesting he sees the current moment as a window for multiple breakthroughs. Whether that ambition outpaces the available political will in Arab capitals remains the central unknown.
What remains unresolved
The leaked call raises as many questions as it answers. The source of the leak has not been identified. The specific leaders who joined from each country have not been named publicly. And the reasons for the Arab silence, whether it reflected shock, disagreement, or a coordinated decision to withhold comment, remain unexplained.
The substance of the Iran deal itself is murky. Trump says it is "largely negotiated." Iran says nuclear concessions are not on the table yet. The Wall Street Journal says talks stalled over uranium and frozen assets. These descriptions are difficult to reconcile.
The unfreezing of Iranian assets, described only as "billions", is politically explosive. The Obama administration's release of Iranian funds under the JCPOA drew fierce Republican criticism. Any similar arrangement under Trump would face scrutiny from his own base.
Trump has previously signaled the U.S. would exit the Iran conflict quickly while leaving the door open for return strikes. That posture, ready to deal but willing to escalate, defines his negotiating style. The question is whether it can hold together a package that links Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Strait of Hormuz, Arab-Israeli normalization, and billions in frozen assets into a single coherent agreement.
The silence says something
The most revealing detail from Saturday's call is also the simplest: Trump asked four Arab governments to normalize with Israel, and not one of them said a word. That is not a rejection. But it is not encouragement, either.
Trump's willingness to make the demand, and to do so in a forum that leaked almost immediately, shows he is not interested in quiet, incremental diplomacy. He wants public commitments. He wants movement. And he is willing to condition American help on getting both.
His track record on high-profile diplomatic announcements includes genuine breakthroughs and premature declarations alike. The Abraham Accords were real. The first-term North Korea summits produced handshakes but no denuclearization. This Iran package could land anywhere on that spectrum.
What Saturday's call made clear is that Trump is not content to broker a narrow deal on the Strait of Hormuz and call it a win. He wants the whole thing, Iran, Israel, the Accords, the nuclear question, wrapped together. It is an audacious bet. The silence on the other end of the line suggests the region is still deciding whether to take it.
In diplomacy, silence is not consent. But it is not a "no," either, and Trump has built a career on exploiting that gap.
