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US Iran talks are planned in Pakistan for Wednesday. According to CNN, Vice President jad Vance is expected to fly there tomorrow. Ian Bremer, your Asia Group president and founder, outlined for Cubrists that could derail in Iran deal. He joins US Now Ian it is the consistent headline fatigue and fog of war that we've been dealing with. First, the straightform MOOS is open on Friday, that Iran says
it's closed on Saturday. Questions surrounding the US seizure of an Iranian ship, are you confident, like this market is that we are indeed in an off ramp to piece.
No, No, not at all. I'm confident that we're in an off ramp for an announcement of peace. I think we will get a second round of talks. I think they'll go forward. I think Vance will get there and he'll talk to the Iranians. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if on the back of that there's some progress. Both sides are pretty close on many issues. Trump really
wants a deal. Trump is likely to announce one, but moving from an announcement to an actual implementation that then lets us feel like we can get traffic in the straight back to normal. That's a lot a lifting that has to happen before then. There are a lot of ways that that can blow apart. We're not close to that in my view.
How important is that to the president Outwardly? It's important for the Republican Party that the price at the pump not accelerate any further and hopefully come down. But I wonder if the President feels comfortable with crude oil in the eighty or ninety dollars range. It certainly hasn't hurt the energy companies that I'm sure lobby him, and it's obviously been beneficial to Russia.
As well well. He seems to feel more comfortable now than he did when he gave the State of the Union and was talking about gas under two bucks at a station in Iowa. That's how he started his speech. Now he's saying, you know, oil is a lot lower than it could have been. He heard two hundred and two fifty three hundred dollars and it's under one hundred.
Isn't that great? And that's because not only have prices gone way up under his administration and because of his decisions in Iran, but also because he doesn't have a mechanism to get them down. He knows that, So, I mean, he doesn't have a military plan that's going to open the strait anytime soon. And in some ways he's been slow rolling it. You know, you've got an aircraft strike carrier group that's now going the slow way around the
Cape of Good Hope. You've got other thousands of marine expeditionary unit that's still on the other side of the Strait of Malacca. And so it doesn't look like there is an imminent military decision to escalate, nor is there a pl that looks like it would get prices down. So at this point Trump has to accept that come November, a big part of his efforts at the midterms are going to be underwater with affordability.
So this is why you're confident Ian that we're going to get an extension of the ceasefire, right because that is supposed to end on Tuesday night. We're seeing now headlines that talks may actually happen Wednesday in Islamabad, which would be great timing to extend the ceasefire for no reason at all. The big problem though, is that that would allow the Iranians to dig out, as you put in your notes, some of their missiles that are US and Israeli attacks have buried.
Well, that's already happened, right, I mean, over the last week. We already have the Iranians improving their military capabilities because there's a ceasefire on so I mean Trump Trump's willingness to provide a ceasefire implied that he was quite serious about an off ramp, because otherwise why would he give the Iranians that time. Now he's trying to show that he's serious and that there'll be consequences with the blockade I think that is and with the attack and the
seizure of an Iranian vessel. At the same time, the ceasefire is still in place. The Americans haven't violated it. Trump has pushed the Israelis to accept a ceasefire with Lebanon. He's quite proud of that. He's been calling up global leaders and telling them what a great job he did at ending yet another war, this time between Israel and Lebanon.
He's also been threatening the Iranians a fifth time by my count, and that if they don't come to the table, and agree with Trump on a breakthrough that he's going to blow up all of their civilian infrastructure. He's less credible on that one. But still, everything about Trump's activities and posturing in the last two weeks seemed to imply he wants to extend the ceasefire. Seems to imply he really doesn't want to go back to fighting if he can avoid it.
But still, there is this US military blockade in the Strait of Hormus. I mean, this's just coming out now that they've directed twenty seven vessels to turn back, according to the US military Ian. To what degree does this place more economic pressure on Iran itself? And is that something that could move the needle further, that could bring them to the table, You have to hope.
So it's putting more pressure on Iran. It's also putting more economic pressure on the United States, which improves America's credibility. Let's remember that Iran has a lot more money today than they did six weeks ago because the oil prices are so much higher, and because the United States wasn't imposing a blockade. In fact, until last week, the Americans had suspended oil sanctions on Iran because at that point, Trump was focused more on keeping prices down than on
pressuring the Iranian regime. He has since flipped that logic on its head, and so now he's trying to do more to show the Iranians he's going to squeeze them. Is that really about economic pressure or is it about trying to show American credibility that if you persist with a refusal to come to the table and come to terms, that the United States is capable of waiting you out, and do the Iranians find that credible? I mean, the
real danger here is that Iran. I mean, you saw Trump said I'm no more, mister nice guy, if you're the supreme leader of Iran, or if you're the leaders of the IRGC and Trump has already with the Israelis killed your father and your mother and one hundred and fifty of the leaders of your country have been assassinated, and then you're saying no more, mister nice guy. Plausibly. You didn't think he was mister nice guy even before
he said that, right, plausibly. So I think that you know the problem is America is trying to negotiate, having already blown up the negotiations with a group of leaders that may not be focused just on how do we get to yes with the United States. There may be a willingness to engage in retribution. There may be some ideology that is not about just survival as a regime. This may be kind of a challenge that the Israelis
had with Hamas in Gaza, for example. But I don't think the Americans are prepared to do the damage to Iran that the Israelis were to the people of Gaza to get to their military outcomes. And so that limits the ability of Trump to force the Iranians to do what he wants.
And to what extent has Pudin and Russia been a beneficiary of this war? And how is China positioned.
Russia is a near term beneficiary, probably the biggest of the near term beneficiaries, again like Iran until last week, selling a lot more oil and gas and fertilizer, and that's what the Russians have to export at much higher prices because of the war.
And those sanctions remain lifted. By the way, what the sanctions on Russia that they have been lifted.
Russian sanctions have been suspended just as the Iranian sanctions were suspended by the United States. They are still suspended as of today, and so the Russians are making a lot more money. Also, of course, a lot of the military capabilities that had been available to sell to the Europeans who were providing them to Ukraine, those military capabilities interceptors, missile defense, they are now going to the Gulf region.
So the fact is that the Russians no longer have to worry as much that the Ukrainians are going to be able to repel them the way they have. Having said all of that, Ukraine today is the most capable and trained military in Europe. And I don't think that was Putin's intention four years ago, but that is the reality today. And Putin has not been able to take any land from the Ukrainians in the last three months. In fact, he's actually lost some land in occupied Ukraine
that the Ukrainians have taken back. So when I look at Russia today from a global perspective, even though their position has improved somewhat in the past weeks of the Iran War, I wouldn't want to be in their position. It's also true that the trans atlantic relationship getting a lot weaker, more fractious that is an improvement for Putin. He likes big existential questions around NATO, the Americans calling
NATO allies cowards. Putin likes all of that, but his biggest ally in Europe, victor Orbon and Hungary just lost to an anti Russian Hungarian right wing populist Petter Magyar with a constitutional majority, which means that the Europeans, even with the new Bulgaria elections, the Europeans are going to have an easier time raising more money for Ukraine, raising more loans for Ukraine, putting tougher sanctions on the Russians.
So I really don't think Putin's in a materially better position as a consequence of all this, China is in a materially better position long term because so many countries are angry with the United States. This war that the Americans launched in Iran is enormously unpopular with almost every country in the world except Israel, and that has led many governments to want to hedge more with other countries,
including with China. So long term, even though this hurts the Chinese economy, they're not a big energy exporter that they don't like to see these prices going up anymore than the Indonesians or the South Koreans, But long term, China sees themselves as in a better strategic position.
Ian, I hate to wrap you because I would love to have you for longer. Ian Bremer of the Eurasia Group, President there and founder. Thank you so much for joining us. Always great to get some time with you.