Trump Says 'We Blow Them Up, Make a Deal' on Iran as Tehran Weighs Official U.S. Reply to Its Hormuz Offer

The Choice Trump Says He's About to Make

Standing in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Sept. 30, President Trump laid out the war with Iran as a binary. "We have to make that decision. We blow them up, make a deal," he told reporters^[1][2]. Asked how he could negotiate with Iranian leaders he's called "crazy," he said, "Maybe you blow them up"^[1][2].

He also claimed the U.S. now has "virtually total control" of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway Iran has repeatedly shut down during the war^[2][3]. He said oil flowed through it at a record pace over the previous three days, though the sources used for this piece couldn't independently confirm that^[2][18]. He gave no specifics on what comes next, only that "you'll see things happening very soon"^[2][3].

The same day, Iran's government said it had gotten Washington's turn in the back-and-forth. A spokesperson told the state news agency IRNA that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi presented the official U.S. response to President Masoud Pezeshkian's Cabinet. Its contents haven't been made public^[8]. Pezeshkian said any deal "must now be based on a win-win strategy"^[8].

Those two things happened on the same day. One side was talking about blowing things up. The other side was reviewing a written reply. That gap is the story.

A Blockade on Each Side

Four days before Trump's remarks, on Saturday, Sept. 26, he'd already rejected a specific Iranian offer. Iran proposed reopening Hormuz in stages over seven days and restarting nuclear talks, if the U.S. met a list of conditions^[4][5].

Iran says those conditions aren't new. It says they come from a memorandum of understanding — a written statement of agreed steps, short of a full treaty — that both countries signed in June. That agreement collapsed within days after new strikes^[6]. The terms Iran wants back on the table reportedly include lifting the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports, waiving oil sanctions, releasing about $12 billion in frozen Iranian assets, and a broader regional ceasefire^[6][7].

Here's the structural problem underneath all of it: each side is holding a chokehold on the other, and each wants the other to let go first. Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz, the passage that much of the world's oil has to move through, and it has done so repeatedly during this war^[6]. The U.S. Navy, in turn, is blockading Iran's own ports. Iran's offer asks the U.S. to drop its blockade before the strait fully reopens^[6][7]. From the Trump administration's side, that's giving up leverage for promises from a deal that already fell apart once^[7]. From Iran's side, it's just asking the U.S. to honor what it already signed^[6].

Why Washington Isn't Rushing

Trump's team isn't treating Iran's offer as a want-list to grab. Experts quoted by Al Jazeera describe the view inside the administration this way: the blockade and Iran's broader economic isolation are working, and Tehran's offer is itself proof of that^[7]. On this read, Iran is losing, and losing badly, so there's no reason to hand back the blockade now.

There's a second force at work, and it has nothing to do with Iran. Trump has said oil and gas prices won't come down until "right after" the Nov. 3 midterm elections^[12]. Brent crude, the global oil-price benchmark that U.S. gas prices track, closed above $101 a barrel in early September — its highest closing level since May^[12]. Several outlets report Trump may be holding off on further strikes until after the vote, which would tie the war's next phase directly to the U.S. election calendar^[10][11].

Democrats have seized on that. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has called it "Trump's reckless war" and pushed for releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the government's emergency stockpile, to bring prices down before voters go to the polls^[23]. One Wells Fargo analysis of a prediction market found that higher oil prices track with better odds for Democrats taking Congress^[12]. So the war's timing is now tangled up with domestic politics on both sides of the aisle.

Iran's Case: We're Offering What You Already Agreed To

Araghchi, in a Sept. 27 interview, put Iran's position in blunt terms: Iran is "fully prepared for the war to be resumed," he said, but diplomacy isn't over. "It is up to President Trump to choose"^[9]. That's not the language of a government that sees itself as beaten.

Iran's framing is that its offer isn't a concession — it's a request that the U.S. follow through on June's memorandum^[6]. Pezeshkian has said Iran will "make every effort" toward a deal while defending "the rights of the Iranian people"^[8]. One open question hangs over any future nuclear talks: Iran wants to keep the right to enrich uranium, meaning refine it for use as reactor or weapons fuel, on its own soil^[6][17]. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, said in October 2025 it had no information on the status of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile — a gap that feeds U.S. demands for new inspections^[17].

Iran also has its own stake in the timing. Fortune reports that Tehran sees high U.S. gas prices before the midterms as pressure it can use against Trump, the mirror image of his own bet that prices will fall once the election has passed^[13]. Both governments, in other words, are watching the same calendar for opposite reasons.

The Neighbors Who Don't Get a Vote

Gulf states and other regional players aren't at the table, but they'd absorb the cost if talks fail. An Al Jazeera opinion piece argues Iran's offer would effectively settle Hormuz and shift the risks of a wider regional ceasefire, covering Yemen and Lebanon, onto neighbors who have no say in it^[15]. Gulf outlets have stressed the danger of further escalation landing in their own backyard^[1]. Earlier in the war, Iran struck U.S. allies in the Gulf after American strikes on its own territory^[1][15].

Coverage of Trump's remarks split along familiar lines. Fox News led with his claim of control over Hormuz and his promise that a decision is coming "very soon," pairing it with an unrelated terror investigation in the same report^[3]. The Associated Press, by contrast, led with the verifiable diplomatic step — Iran's confirmation that it received a formal U.S. reply — and said comparatively little about Trump's rhetoric^[8]. NBC News gave its headline to Araghchi's quote putting the choice back on Trump^[9]. The Hill led with the midterms angle, framing further strikes as effectively on hold until after the vote^[10]. Gulf News ran with the starkest line, "we blow them up or make a deal," and stressed the regional stakes^[1]. Al Jazeera called Iran's plan a "truce offer," a label that leans into the Iranian framing that the ball is in Washington's court^[7].

What's actually on the table in that unreleased U.S. reply, and whether either government blinks before Election Day, is still unknown. Iran's Cabinet is reviewing a response the public hasn't seen, and Trump has promised movement "very soon" without saying what it looks like. Both sides are set up to wait each other out, with the Nov. 3 vote as the deadline neither has officially named.