“I think it seems fairly clear that the MOU collapsed prior to the end of this 60-day deadline. So, in a sense, there’s really not much significance to this date because the MOU really hasn’t been in effect for quite some time,” Mona Yacoubian, a Middle East expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Examiner.

Trump said Monday morning on Truth Social, “The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon.”

He told Fox News that Iran “should put up the white flag of surrender.” He also said he has “no time schedule” and is “not in a hurry.”

While the U.S. military is not currently carrying out kinetic military operations against Iran, it is continuing a blockade of Iranian ports, which is one component of the administration’s attempts to create economic leverage to push Iran to a deal. Iran, alternatively, thinks it can wait out the U.S. due to domestic frustration with the conflict and the upcoming midterm elections.

“I think that Washington is counting on the fact that it thinks it has a way to impose enough pain so that ultimately the Iranians will say this is not worth it through the blockade and sanctions,” Kelly Grieco, a Middle East expert with the Stimson Center, told the Washington Examiner, while the Iranians are aiming to last until the U.S. “ultimately decide[s] that continuing this is neither politically nor economically feasible.”

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. controls the Strait of Hormuz, even as traffic remains suppressed due to the threats that Iran poses to those vessels. Roughly 20% of the world’s gas flowed through the strait before the start of the war. The president has also repeatedly threatened escalatory attacks on Iran, only to back down from those threats frequently due to pressure from Persian Gulf allies that have borne the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory attacks.

“I think, unfortunately, we continue to be in a very unstable period that is marked by, in essence, a limbo between all-out confrontation and any sort of nominal ceasefire,” Yacoubian added. “I think this is indicative of the fact that on the U.S. side, I don’t think that the administration has any really palatable options in front of them, and so that’s why you don’t really see much progress being made.”

While the war ostensibly began over Iran’s nuclear program, the focus of the conflict has long since shifted to the strait, where Iran has demonstrated its ability to disrupt global economic markets unilaterally. It has also raised concerns about chokepoints both in the region and across the globe.

“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s*** out of them,” Trump added.

The U.S. restarted offensive strikes against Iran in July, and its daily operations continued for nearly two weeks before the president called them off. Iran carried out retaliatory attacks against U.S. allies. One attack targeting a U.S. base in Jordan killed three U.S. service members, while a fourth died days after that attack in a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone.

Should Trump order an escalation or resumption of the war, there would be concerns about how Iran would respond across the region. There are also questions about America’s military stockpiles of critical munitions that would further decrease if the war returned to a higher intensity.

“We’re still in the standoff where Trump is hoping to use economic warfare on Iran in the form of U.S. blockade and sanctions to try to get them to capitulate on the Strait of Hormuz and other issues,” Rosemary Kelanic, an expert with Defense Priorities, told the Washington Examiner. “And Iran is not budging, and there’s no sign that they’re going to, not least because they see how strained the U.S. military is by this war.”

The commander of U.S. Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, recently returned from a trip to the Middle East where he visited Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In addition to meeting foreign counterparts, Cooper also visited the sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Military leaders have acknowledged the difficult conditions for those on board the Lincoln, which has been deployed since November 2025, though they have pushed back on reporting about how dire the situation on board has gotten, with reports about mental health crises.

Outside of direct U.S.-Iranian engagements, Iranian allies in Yemen, the Houthis, and militias in Iraq have both launched attacks in recent weeks. The Houthis, which reduced shipping in recent years through the Bab el Mandeb strait that connects the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, have restarted attacks on vessels in recent weeks, threatening to exacerbate the energy concerns further.

‘FAKE NEWS’: TRUMP DOWNPLAYS USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN DEPLOYMENT CONCERNS

Trump’s son-in-law and former foreign policy adviser during his first term, Jared Kushner, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday as the two sides continue to navigate the difficulties involved in disarming Hamas. Kushner and Board of Peace officials Nickolay Mladenov and Tony Blair met with Netanyahu on Monday after a meeting with Hamas chief Khalil al Hayya in Cairo on Sunday.

For weeks, Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have questioned the efficacy of the Board of Peace’s strategy regarding the disarmament of Hamas before Israel’s withdrawal from the region.