Friedrich Merz, Germany's chancellor, has accused the Trump administration of being outwitted by Iranian negotiators, calling the stalled talks a source of national humiliation that extends beyond Washington to the broader Western alliance.
The blunt assessment marks a sharp divergence from President Trump's public positioning on the deadlocked negotiations. Two days before Merz's comments, Trump cancelled a trip by US negotiators to Islamabad for indirect talks with an Iranian delegation. A previous round in the Pakistani capital two weeks earlier, led by Vice President JD Vance, ended without progress.
Speaking to students in Marsberg, Merz characterized Iran's approach as masterful obstruction. "The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skilful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result," he said. "An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible."
Trump had claimed the opposite a day earlier, telling Fox News that the US held all the advantages. "We have all the cards," he said, insisting that if Iran wanted negotiations, "they can come to us, or they can call us."
Iran's latest move suggests Tehran is calculating differently. On Monday, Iranian officials conveyed a new proposal through Pakistani mediators focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz through a fee-based system for shipping passage. The proposal would defer discussions on nuclear weapons, missiles, sanctions and other core issues to an unspecified later date.
Under a bill being prepared by Iran's parliament, shippers passing through the strait would pay Tehran for so-called "services." The strait was free to traverse before the conflict escalated. The UN's International Maritime Organization immediately rejected the scheme. Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez stated: "There's no legal basis for the introduction of any tax, any customs, or any fees on straits for international navigation."
The "Hormuz first" proposal nonetheless reflects a significant tactical shift. Tehran previously leveraged its blockade of oil, gas and other Gulf exports to extract broader security concessions. That leverage weakened after Trump imposed a counter-blockade on Iranian shipping, compounding an already severe economic crisis.
The International Monetary Fund forecasts a 6.1 percent contraction in Iran's economy this year, with inflation approaching 70 percent. Food and healthcare prices are rising even faster. The blockade has strangled Iran's ability to store crude output, since empty tankers cannot return to port. Reducing production would cause long-term damage to the energy sector.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Moscow on Monday to meet Vladimir Putin and a high-level Russian delegation, seeking to mitigate the blockade's effects. Putin pledged that Russia "will do everything that serves [Iranian] interests, the interests of all the people of the region, so that peace can be achieved as soon as possible."
Araghchi signaled confidence in Tehran's position, declaring that "the world has now realised Iran's true power" and describing the Islamic republic as "a stable, solid and powerful system."
Analyst Nikita Smagin noted that the talks centered on Russian military and economic support, including potential trade routes through the Caspian Sea. "If the US blockade continues, then the Caspian Sea and the land link with Russia will become one of the few remaining routes for connecting Iran with world markets," Smagin wrote on Telegram.
Israel damaged that route in March with a bombing strike on Bandar Anzali, an Iranian port. Even before the Israeli strike, however, the Caspian alternative fell far short of replacing the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for more than 90 percent of Iran's prewar trade.
Ali Vaez, Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, suggested Trump underestimated Iran's willingness to endure economic hardship. "Undeniably, the blockade is basically sharpening the economic pain that Iran was under even before the war started," Vaez said. "But Iranian resilience is not a question of economic pain because Iran is in an existential battle and is willing to absorb a much higher price than it has so far. And the Iranian regime doesn't hesitate to transfer this pain to its population."
Vaez identified several pressure points favoring Trump's acceptance of a limited deal. High gasoline prices domestically carry political costs. Trump wants to resolve the crisis before meeting Xi Jinping in Beijing in mid-May. A global jet fuel shortage could disrupt the World Cup scheduled for North America in June and July.
If Trump accepted Iran's Hormuz proposal, he could claim victory by citing damage inflicted on Iran's nuclear and military facilities. But Iran retains a 440-kilogram stockpile of highly enriched uranium, theoretically enough for a dozen nuclear warheads. Ariane Tabatabai, vice president of research, security and defence at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former Pentagon policy adviser, cautioned that Iran could rapidly reconstitute military capabilities. "Their whole military doctrine is based on building and deploying capabilities that they can acquire and maintain and use on the cheap," she said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the prospect of renewed military operations in Lebanon, citing continued threats from Hezbollah's arsenal. "There are still two central threats from Hezbollah: the 122mm rockets and the drones," Netanyahu said. "This demands a combination of operational and technological activity."
Author James Rodriguez: "Merz just crystallized what Trump won't admit: walking away from the negotiating table without concessions while the other side controls the pace is a losing position, not a winning one."
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