Trump Makes Two Additional Demands to Iran Leading to Delay in Agreement

June 11 — Axios is reporting that had President Trump accepted the terms his team negotiated last month, he likely would have locked in a preliminary agreement with Iran by the end of May. But after a May 29 White House Situation Room meeting, Trump decided to add two extra modification requests for Tehran: Iran must begin diluting its stockpile of enriched uranium within 60 days, and Tehran will waive all tolls on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. In exchange, Trump agreed to allow the uranium dilution to happen inside Iran, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Sources and U.S. officials say Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told both mediators and the U.S. he needed four to five days to consult his government before responding — a timeline that stretched into nearly two weeks of waiting. During that period, Trump grew increasingly frustrated as media outlets carried mocking reports about the delayed delivery of his promised Iran deal. Meanwhile, U.S. hardliners criticized him for being too lenient toward Iran. To make the impasse even sharper, Iran — both publicly and privately — pushed for frozen Iranian assets to be unfrozen first, while Trump insisted Tehran must meet its obligations under any final agreement before receiving sanctions relief.