What Is the Status of the U.S.-Iran Peace Talks? Here's What Both Sides Are Saying

President Donald Trump, U.S.

Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Air Force One while heading to Miami on March 7, 2026. —Roberto Schmidt—Getty Images President Donald Trump at the start of the Iran war predicted it would last four-to-five weeks , but the conflict is now in its seventh month, with no clear timeline for when the fighting will end.

Active hostilities between Washington and Tehran resumed earlier this month, with oil tankers in and around the Strait of Hormuz coming under fire.

Iran is vying to maintain a chokehold over the vital trade route amid the U.S. blockade against its ports.

The Strait effectively remains in a military stalemate, bringing renewed regional instability and gravely impacting transit via the waterway, through which around a fifth of global oil production flowed before the war began on Feb.

28.

Oil prices last week soared to over $100 a barrel for the first time since July, as the disruption sends energy markets spiraling once more .

The balance of power in the Gulf has come under further strain as Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have made significant advances following weeks of fighting with the Saudi-backed government of Yemen, shattering a four-year informal cease-fire in the country's civil war.

The Houthis last week captured the strategic Perim Island , which sits in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait , another vital trade route situated between Yemen and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa, that links Asia and Europe via the Red Sea and Suez Canal.

This came as they traveled along the Red Sea coastline, aiming to tighten their grip on the critical maritime chokepoint.

The disruption has placed further pressure on the global oil market.

The Houthis’ expanding presence in the Red Sea and the potential it has to severely disrupt trade via the Bab el-Mandeb arguably gives Iran leverage in its war with the U.S., experts say.

“This has the effect of turning up the pressure on the U.S. and its allies who have been relying on alternate routes,” Daniel Benaim, a former U.S.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Arabian Peninsula, tells TIME.