SINGAPORE PERSPECTIVE

Singapore, May 17, 2026. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of global oil exports normally transit, remains under maximum tension. The Straits Times, reporting from Washington and Tehran, traces the contours of a diplomatic deadlock that directly weighs on Asian energy markets.

US President Donald Trump returned from a two-day summit with Xi Jinping without concrete breakthrough. The two leaders did converge on the principle of reopening the strait, but no operational mechanism was announced. Trump said from Air Force One that he might lift sanctions on Chinese oil companies buying Iranian crude: "I will make a decision in a few days," he declared. Beijing had ordered its companies to ignore these penalties. According to Straits Times data, Brent prices have risen 50 percent since the conflict began on February 28, triggered by US and Israeli strikes on Iran.

On the Iranian side, the position remains firm. President Masoud Pezeshkian indicated that navigation would return to normal conditions "once current insecurity is resolved," while specifying that Tehran intends to maintain "surveillance and control mechanisms" in the strait, within international law. The Mehr agency cites Iranian officials saying Washington "seeks concessions it failed to extract during the war."

The US list of demands transmitted to Tehran includes maintaining a single active nuclear site, transferring highly enriched uranium stockpiles to the United States, and halting hostilities conditional on opening negotiations. Iran, for its part, demands an end to the naval blockade in effect since April 13, lifting of sanctions, and return of frozen assets.

Rhetoric remains sharp. On Truth Social, Trump wrote on May 17: "For Iran, the clock is ticking, and they better act FAST, or there will be nothing left of them." In response, a spokesman for Iran's armed forces warned that new attacks would provoke "unprecedented surprising and tumultuous offensive scenarios." The Iranian Parliament's vice-president added that any harm to Iranian oil infrastructure would prevent "the United States and the world from accessing oil in the region for an extended period."

Pakistan is conducting active mediation: its Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met Iran's lead negotiator on May 17 in Tehran, Parliament President Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Separately, a drone sparked a fire near a nuclear facility in Abu Dhabi the same day, with no casualties or radiological impact reported.