# Trump rejects Iran's seven-day Hormuz plan as escorted crude flows out of the Gulf climb to about 13 million barrels a day > President Trump said on September 26 that Iran's plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, in exchange for released assets, oil-sanctions relief and an end to the US naval blockade, would not be acceptable, per Al Jazeera. Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran will not back down on its conditions and is still waiting for a formal reply through mediators Qatar and Pakistan, per Al Jazeera and The National, while Trump told Axios he expects US negotiators to hold more talks in the days ahead, per The National. The rejection lands as independent trackers report crude leaving the Gulf back at its brief July peak: Tanker Trackers put crude exiting the US blockade line at 13 million barrels a day, double the level of less than a month ago, per Fortune. - Label: Fact - Type: News item - Published: 2026-09-28T09:00:00+04:00 - By: Winda Beacon newsroom - Canonical: https://beacon.winda.ai/news/2026-09-28-strait-of-hormuz/ ## Where it stands Oil analyst Rory Johnston's seven-day average puts flows clearing the strait near 13.5 million barrels a day, still well below pre-war levels, and Tanker Trackers attributes the rise partly to daytime transits under US Central Command escort and partly to Saudi Arabia shifting exports back into the Gulf after attacks on the East-West bypass, per Fortune. A US official claimed nearly 40 million barrels left under escort in 48 hours, a pre-war rate, per CBS News; Beacon treats that as a party claim that the tracker estimates do not support. On the Red Sea side, the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted two Houthi drones launched toward the Riyadh area on Saturday, and the Houthis now hold Yemen's Red Sea coast including Bab al-Mandab, per AFP via CBS News. Status: monitoring. ## What happened The diplomatic record over the weekend hardened on both sides. Trump told reporters on Saturday that Iran wants to reopen the strait immediately only because it is losing badly, and said 29 ships had come out the previous night, per CBS News. Araghchi replied on Telegram that Iran would not retreat from its conditions and, on NBC on Sunday, questioned why Washington would not release Iranian funds before a reopening, per Al Jazeera and The National. US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told CNN that Tehran was asking for everything up front, including an end to UN snapback sanctions, and President Pezeshkian told Al Jazeera that Iran no longer trusts talks with Washington. The only shared language came from the Trump-Xi summit: the White House fact sheet says both leaders agreed that no country may impose tolls on international waterways. The flow data is the backdrop to Washington's patience. Tanker Trackers said volumes exiting the blockade line doubled in less than a month, and Fortune reports the US military moved escorts to daylight after airstrikes degraded Iran's ability to detect commercial ships and the Navy cleared mines from the main corridor. The US blockade of Iranian ports had redirected 122 vessels as of Friday, per CENTCOM figures relayed by CBS News. The constraint is cost, not capacity: Johnston puts it at $30 to $40 or more per barrel, with crews paid more for the risk and insurance costlier, per Fortune, and Brent closed the week at $104, where it began, after touching $108 on Thursday, per CBS News. Beacon notes the gap between the US official's pre-war-rate claim and the 13 to 13.5 million barrel tracker estimates, and will use tracker data, not official statements, as its series of record. **Analysis:** ## What it means Washington turned the plan down without a counteroffer at a moment when escorted flow is doing part of the work a deal would do, which lowers the odds of a near-term agreement; Al Jazeera, citing the Wall Street Journal, reports Trump privately expects renewed bombing after the November midterms. For investors, Johnston puts the cost of getting a barrel out at $30 to $40 or more, excluding the military, so the corridor's economics depend on the high prices it is meant to relieve. For integrity managers, the tracker volumes reconcile with last week's single-digit transit counts (13 million barrels a day is six or seven laden VLCCs at about 2 million barrels each), and if Saudi barrels are moving back to the Gulf, the damaged East-West line gets time for permanent repair instead of export-rate running on temporary bypasses: watch whether Yanbu loadings fall this week. ## Sources 1. [Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/26/trump-rejects-irans-seven-day-roadmap-to-reopen-strait-of-hormuz), 2026-09-26 2. [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/09/26/trump-iran-war-ceasefire-offer-oil-volume-persian-gulf-us-military-hormuz-daytime/), 2026-09-26 3. [The National](https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2026/09/27/iran-seven-day-plan-araghchi/), 2026-09-27 4. [Reuters via WMBD](https://wmbdradio.com/2026/09/28/oil-price-gains-pared-as-qatar-us-iran-talks-loom/), 2026-09-28 5. [AP via Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/09/30/trump-iran-hormuz-strait-talks/), 2026-09-30 6. [Bloomberg via gCaptain](https://gcaptain.com/jpmorgan-and-goldman-see-mideast-oil-flows-near-pre-war-levels/), 2026-09-30 Published by Winda Beacon (https://beacon.winda.ai).