The U.S.–Iran nuclear talks.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 13 minutes.

The SAVE Act.

Over the past week, we’ve received a lot of emails from readers asking us about the House passing the SAVE Act — what is it, what will it do, and what will it really mean for married women who have changed their last names and are trying to vote? We’ll get into all of it (and more) in a subscribers-only edition this Friday. Until then, reply to this email with other questions you have about the bill you’d like us to answer!

Quick hits.

1. During a visit to the White House, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said he would not release the man mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration, claiming he did not have the power to return him to the United States. (The comments)
2. The Trump administration froze $2.26 billion in federal grants and contracts for Harvard University after the school said it would not comply with the administration’s demands to change its governance structure over campus antisemitism concerns. (The freeze)
3. Immigration officials detained Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia student and legal U.S. resident, as he arrived for a citizenship interview in Vermont. The government appears to be seeking Mahdawi’s removal from the U.S. on the grounds that his presence is a national security threat. (The arrest)
4. The Trump administration has reportedly proposed a near 50% cut to the State Department’s budget — primarily reducing funding for humanitarian assistance, global health, and international organizations — according to an internal memo circulated last week. (The report)
5. The Justice Department announced charges against a man who allegedly carried out arson attacks on the New Mexico Republican Party's headquarters and a New Mexico Tesla dealership. (The charges)

Today's topic.

The U.S.–Iran talks. On Saturday, U.S. and Iranian officials initiated discussions in Oman over Iran’s nuclear program. The majority of the talks were indirect and mediated by Oman, with each delegation in separate rooms and exchanging messages through Oman's foreign minister. However, at the end of the roughly two-and-a-half-hour session, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi reportedly spoke directly for 45 minutes (Iran claimed the exchange was shorter). A second round of discussions is expected to take place this Saturday, though the location is still being determined. 

Back up: In 2018, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 agreement between Iran and a group of six nations led by the United States to restrict Iran’s nuclear development in return for relaxed sanctions. Since then, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found that Iran has continued to enrich its uranium stockpile to near weapons-grade levels. In March, the nuclear watchdog reported that Iran has enriched roughly 275 kilograms of uranium up to 60% purity; uranium is weapons grade when enriched to 90% (Iran claims that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes). The Biden administration sought to reinstate the JCPOA but was unable to reach a deal, and President Trump has promised to strike a new deal while simultaneously implementing a “maximum pressure campaign” sanctioning Iranian oil exports. 

The Trump administration called the Oman discussions “very positive and constructive,” adding that “Special Envoy Witkoff’s direct communication today was a step forward in achieving a mutually beneficial outcome.” Separately, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi told Iranian state television, “I think we are very close to a basis for negotiations and if we can conclude this basis next week, we’ll have gone a long way and will be able to start real discussions based on that.” 

An Omani source also reported, “The current focus of the talks will be de-escalating regional tensions, prisoner exchanges and limited agreements to ease sanctions (against Iran) in exchange for controlling Iran's nuclear programme.” An Iranian spokesman denied this account, but did not specify what was false.

Ahead of the talks, President Trump said that “Iran is going to be in great danger” if the discussions did not go well. However, Trump has also expressed a desire to reach a diplomatic solution, sending a letter through the United Arab Emirates to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, outlining his vision for a deal.

U.S. and Iranian officials struck an optimistic tone heading into next week’s talks, but key issues remain for both sides. Iran is reportedly concerned that Trump could pull out of the deal again, while U.S. officials raised doubts about Iran’s plan for its nuclear program. 

Today, we’ll explore views from the left, right, and abroad on the initial talks. Then, my take.

What the left is saying.

• The left is mixed on the talks, with some suggesting the administration should keep military action on the table.
• Others say Trump’s haphazard posture on the talks threatens their success. 

For The Atlantic Council, Daniel B. Shapiro wrote “the Iran nuclear talks are Trump’s decisive moment on military strikes.”

“If and when talks get serious, the two sides will face major gaps. Trump is seeking a tougher deal than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). His aims include fully dismantling Tehran’s nuclear program,” Shapiro said. “Based on all Iranian behavior in previous rounds of negotiations, there is no reason to believe Tehran would agree to these terms. Iran has for decades worked to assemble an industrial nuclear program, which the regime believes to be key to its survival. The notion that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at age eighty-five and nearing the end of his rule, would agree to give it all up is implausible.”

“Given these challenges, three options are likely to emerge from the negotiations: One, a limited deal that does not fundamentally dismantle Iran’s program, but buys some time; two, no deal, the deadline approaching, and the imposition of snapback sanctions, leading to a crisis; and three, a military strike against the nuclear program,” Shapiro wrote. “A successful military operation might buy considerably more time than one thinks. Even so, the United States should only undertake such an operation if it is prepared to potentially repeat it. Planners must realistically scope the force posture required in the Middle East to keep that option available.”

In Bloomberg, Andreas Kluth asked “why should Iran believe anything the US threatens or promises?”

“The problem — as hostage negotiators, relationship therapists and others can confirm — is that talking doesn’t always solve a problem and can even make it worse, depending on the intentions, interests and mental states of the interlocutors. The Iranians (like the Russians) are notoriously shifty negotiators. But so are the Americans, now that they’re led by Trump,” Kluth said. “The president has been contradicting himself and garbling his signals to an extent that now hampers negotiations with any rational actors, whether they’re in Tehran, Beijing, Moscow or Pyongyang.”

“Trump is once again exerting maximum pressure, while simultaneously offering talks and threatening war, and neither of those convincingly… An approach with better odds of success, if it came across as credible, might be to ask Iran not to ditch nuclear technology altogether but only to forswear its weaponization and to accept rigorous international verification,” Kluth wrote. “Trump can’t be a credible negotiator while simultaneously impersonating a madman (let’s keep assuming he’s impersonating). He can’t be a peacemaker if he also keeps threatening to bomb regimes out of existence.”

What the right is saying.

• The right supports the latest developments, arguing Trump is well positioned to bring stability to the Middle East.
• Some say Trump should take advantage of Iran’s weak position to reach a favorable deal. 

In The New York Post, Julian Epstein suggested the “Trump Iran talks could herald the biggest Mid-East reformation of our lifetime.”

“Previous administrations would have never dreamed of direct talks with a pariah state like Iran so early in a new administration. They would have favored a slower technocratic process of preliminary proposals, proffers, and, above all else, insulating the principals from any blame in the event the talks failed,” Epstein wrote. “Trump’s message to Iran is simple… Abandon your nuclear program, or else. To most observers, this appears to be the use of hard power, or the threat of it, by someone with a bigger gun… But what most of the commentariat is missing is the three-dimensional strategy Trump seems to be employing on the global chess board.”

“The story of this chess game starts, interestingly enough, with the armistice negotiations in Ukraine. Right now, Trump is positioned to secure a peace agreement that ensures a reshaped Ukraine’s sovereignty and security… If Trump pulls this off, it will allow the US and the West to lift oil sanctions on Russia and gradually reintegrate Russia into the Western economy,” Epstein said. “But there is a critical caveat. ‘In exchange, Russia detaches itself from Iran,’ scholar and commentator Haviv Rettig Gur says of this newly emerging strategy. It makes abundant sense: Russia will get much more economically from a détente with the West than a continued tenuous military alliance with a dead-man-walking Iranian regime that Iran relied on primarily for its imperialist aims in Syria and Iraq.”

In The Washington Examiner, Peter Laffin wrote “Trump flexes on a hobbled Iran.”

“For Trump, the goal is straightforward. He must prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and he must restrict Iran from the capability to produce nuclear materials, which includes serious protocols for verification. Iran’s current weakness may also enable the U.S. to address Tehran’s malign activities in other areas, including its cyberattack capabilities and arms sales,” Laffin said. “Of course, the Iranians may refuse despite the threat of military strikes. They could suddenly announce that they have achieved nuclear capabilities, which would invite targeted airstrikes from the U.S. and Israel. Trump has assured the Iranians that the situation will be resolved one way or the other.”

“At home, either a favorable deal or successful strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be a feather in the cap for an administration suddenly desperate for some good news,” Laffin wrote. “To be certain, it would be best to avoid a direct military conflict. But Trump is wise to exert pressure by every available means now. Opportunities such as this are rare, and we must capitalize on them while we can. America is fortunate to have leaders in charge who seem to understand this.”

What writers abroad are saying.

• Iranian writers say they are open to a deal but insist the U.S. must be a good-faith negotiator.
• Other writers abroad say Trump has a rare opportunity to secure lasting peace. 

In The Washington Post, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s minister of foreign affairs, said “the ball is in America’s court.”

“In recent weeks, messages and letters have been exchanged between Iran and the United States. Contrary to some interpretations, these communications — at least from our side — have been neither symbolic nor ceremonial. We view them as representing a genuine attempt to clarify positions and open a window toward diplomacy,” Araghchi wrote. “Pursuing indirect negotiations is not a tactic or reflection of ideology but a strategic choice rooted in experience. We face a significant wall of mistrust and harbor serious doubts about the sincerity of intentions, made worse by U.S. insistence on resuming the ‘maximum pressure’ policy prior to any diplomatic interaction.

“To move forward today, we first need to agree that there can be no ‘military option,’ let alone a ‘military solution.’ President Trump clearly recognizes this reality in urging a ceasefire as the first course of action to end the Ukraine conflict,” Araghchi said. “We believe that if there is true will, there is always a way forward. As recent history has shown, diplomatic engagement worked in the past and can still work. We are willing to clarify our peaceful intent and take the necessary measures to allay any possible concern. For its part, the United States can show that it is serious about diplomacy by showing that it will stick to any deal it makes.”

In Responsible Statecraft, Trita Parsi wrote “with Iran talks, Trump could achieve a triple win.”

“Donald Trump’s first diplomatic encounter with Tehran could not have gone any better. Both sides described the talks held in Oman as positive and constructive. But the true sign of their success was that the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, agreed to speak directly to Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff,” Parsi said. “Trump now has the opportunity to secure a ‘better deal’ by going for a triple win. Trump has repeatedly declared that his only red line is that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, but it has remained unclear whether Trump would seek to achieve that through the complete dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program.”

“Iran’s nuclear program has advanced dramatically over the course of the past few years, and getting it back to where it was in 2015 will be a daunting task. But Trump is better positioned to reverse these gains precisely because he is willing to offer primary sanctions relief to Tehran,” Parsi wrote. “If Trump sticks to a strategy that prioritizes the nuclear issue rather than Iran’s ballistic missiles or relations with groups such as Hezbollah or the Houthis, that pursues a verification-based deal rather than Libya-style dismantlement, and uses primary sanctions relief to push back Iran’s nuclear program while opening up its economy to American companies, then he will score a triple win for America.”

My take.

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• It’s interesting that Trump tore up the first Iran deal, and is now coming back to the table.
• This is a good time to talk with Iran, since they’re more vulnerable than they were 10 years ago.
• I’d love a deal that prevents Iran from getting a nuke, but all the threats of military action make me really nervous.

Now this is interesting.

For most of the last decade, conservatives have been largely critical of direct negotiations with Iran. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Obama-era JCPOA in 2018, calling it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.” Conservatives were almost unanimous in their support for that decision, and now six years later some of Trump’s former advisers worry he’s going to come home with a deal similar to the JCPOA.

I doubt that will happen — primarily because this moment is much different than 2015.

Today, Iran is a seriously degraded regime with weaker regional and domestic positions. The wars in Gaza and Lebanon have inflicted heavy damage on Hamas and Hezbollah, two of its most important proxy groups. The Houthis, whom Iran has supplied with weapons but are less of a direct Iranian proxy, have been the most recent target of the U.S. military. Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, propped up by Iran, has fallen. Iran’s two strikes on Israel, which did limited damage, proved Israeli defenses are more than capable. Then Israel responded with heavy strikes on Iran’s air-defense network that are believed to have crippled it. At the same time, the Iranian people are enduring a struggling economy and continue to openly defy and protest the regime.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has moved two aircraft carriers and 30% of our stealth-bomber fleet into the region. All of this is to say Iran is more vulnerable now than they were 10 years ago, to the point that the regime credibly believes it faces an existential threat. Their fighting force is depleting. Their economy is straining. The vise is tightening.

At the same time, critics of deals like JCPOA believe that the last few years have vindicated their fears. Their common refrain was that the negotiated terms would only keep a nuclear weapon at an arm’s length while allowing Iran to keep its coffers flush and continue to sow chaos in the region. The October 7 attacks in Israel, Hezbollah’s military preparedness, and the Houthis’ attacks are all manifestations of those fears. However, the extent to which deals like JCPOA impact Iran’s operational funding is contentious, especially because funding those groups is relatively inexpensive. For instance, Hezbollah receives an estimated $700 million annually from Iran, while Iran allocated an estimated $25 billion to its armed forces alone over the last year, and it announced plans to increase defense spending by 200% in October. Yes, unfreezing an additional $50–100 billion in sanctioned assets would obviously make funding Hezbollah a whole lot easier, but it only represents a small fraction of Iran’s overall budget.

In the past, I’ve been “supportive but skeptical” of Iranian nuclear deals. Iran has been “weeks away from a bomb” for most of my lifetime, and I can hardly stop myself from chuckling when I hear it again, now, in 2025. Of course, keeping a regime that regularly promises the destruction of America and Israel from getting a nuclear bomb makes sense — but it can be hard to take the threat seriously after hearing it so regularly for so long. I was supportive but skeptical of past deals because agreements like JCPOA were effective though imperfect. JCPOA verifiably constrained Iran’s nuclear activities through regular, intrusive inspections from the IAEA. That was the entire point of the deal — which Trump scuttled — and now we’re back in fear-mongering mode about how close Iran is to a bomb. 

Yet the last few years do raise serious questions about the trade-off. The crude bottom line is that for Iran, a new deal could mean “no chance of a nuclear bomb but lots of money in the bank,” while no deal could mean “proximity to a nuclear bomb but crippling sanctions and depleted finances.” Is it better to allow Iran to have some proximity to a nuclear bomb (which we could feasibly interrupt with a strike, espionage, or our own defenses) if it means a weaker Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis? Also, without a deal in place for the past six years, Iran still hasn’t developed the bomb it’s always been “weeks away” from — so do we really need a deal? Could this military intelligence about Iran’s forthcoming nuclear arsenal really just be ginned-up fervor to sabre-rattle us into a war? These are genuine questions Americans and U.S. negotiators need to be asking, and they’re the kinds of tradeoffs I feel conflicted about. 

All of this — opening talks with Iran, trying to initiate a new deal, pursuing “new horizons” for our relationship — it’s laudable. Trump is the ultimate foreign policy reset, even in classic Trump fashion when he’s both the person who put the last deal in the shredder and the one trying to tape it back together.

From the Western/U.S. perspective, the regional situation is undeniably fragile at this moment. We have maximum leverage, but we also have very, very little room for error. There is real anxiety in both countries about a potential war and about how much Iran can trust us as a partner (after all, Trump just tore up the last deal they entered — so they’d be wise to demand any new deal be legally binding and not easily undone by a future administration). That skepticism will now meet Trump’s posturing, which has explicitly been that Iran’s options are a deal or “great danger.” And this time that threat doesn’t seem empty. Conservative pundits well sourced in the administration, including Tucker Carlson, seem deeply alarmed that we are barrelling toward an all-out war with Iran. 

Trump, of course, would face serious domestic challenges going that route — he’s promised over and over some kind of reduced American presence in the Middle East — but it’s hard not to notice him drawing red lines about a strike that we’ll have trouble ignoring in a few weeks. I find some solace in seeing former adversaries like John Kerry and Thomas Kaplan come together to tout the unique opportunity the moment presents for us to reach a historic deal, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous.

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Your questions, answered.

Q: Did the spike in options buying occur before or after Trump posted to Truth Social? This is important context I haven’t seen anyone explicitly confirm.

— Bret from Wisconsin

Tangle: This actually gets pretty complicated. At 9:37am ET on April 9, President Trump posted “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” on Truth Social. Then, at 1:18pm, Trump announced the U.S. would be pausing the global individualized tariffs. Options trading spiked immediately after Trump’s first Truth Social post then again hours later, in the minutes before his announcement that reciprocal tariffs were being paused. As we wrote when we covered the pause, somebody profited big time from a call option (basically a bet that a certain fund or stock will go up in a certain period of time) on Invesco QQQ (an index fund tracking tech companies) that was placed minutes before Trump’s Truth Social post. Other traders also bought call options on $QQQ and $SPY, an ETF tracking the general market, in the first two minutes after the morning post.

The spike in options trading after Trump’s first post suggests one of three things: 1) That a group of people responded to Trump’s “great time to buy” message as a cue changes were coming, or they trusted him that the market was at its low and went all-in on a risky bet. That could be seen as market manipulation, or Trump just insisting his followers “buy the dip” to profit off of a bright future. 2) A group of people had a hunch the tariffs wouldn’t last and got very lucky, placing the option calls minutes before the announcement was made, which seems unlikely. Or 3) a group of people made an investment decision based on information they knew about Trump’s tariff announcement before it was made. 

Given the profits that some individuals gained against the backdrop that the S&P 500, which represents about 75% of the U.S. stock market, has lost 5% of its value in the past two weeks, it should at the very least warrant an investigation to see which of the three scenarios is true.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

On Monday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) first antitrust trial under the Trump administration. The FTC alleges that Meta created an illegal social media monopoly by acquiring the social media apps Instagram and WhatsApp when both were in their early stages, and the agency may seek to remove the companies from Meta’s control. Meta argues that it has not achieved a monopoly in the social media space and faces competition from platforms like TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube. While a loss would bring about significant consequences for Meta, legal experts say the FTC has a tall task to prove its case. “One of the most difficult things for antitrust laws to deal with is when industry leaders purchase small potential competitors,” said Gene Kimmelman, a senior official in the Obama administration’s Department of Justice. “[Meta] bought many things that either didn’t pan out or were integrated… How are Instagram and WhatsApp different?” The New York Times has the story.

Numbers.

• 0. The number of official talks between the United States and Iran during the first Trump administration. 
• +12.3%. Iran’s GDP growth in 2016, the year after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was adopted, according to the Central Bank of Iran. 
• –4.8%. Iran’s GDP growth in 2018, the year President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA. 
• 3.8 million. The average number of barrels per day of crude oil produced by Iran at the start of 2018, before Trump pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA.
• 2.1 million. The average number of barrels per day of crude oil produced by Iran in October 2019.
• +93. The estimated increase, in kilograms, of Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60% between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025, according to a March report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
• 6,604. The estimated amount, in kilograms, of Iran’s overall stockpile of enriched uranium, as of October 26, 2024.
• 42. The approximate amount, in kilograms, of uranium already enriched to 60% purity necessary to produce one atomic weapon (possible at 90% purity, according to the IAEA). 

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about Iran’s attack on Israel.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was the ad in the free version for 15 life hacks from Penny Hoarder.
• Nothing to do with politics: A list of Tax Day food deals.
• Yesterday’s survey: 2,156 readers answered our survey on the Abrego Garcia and Khalil cases with 51% agreeing only with the Abrego Garcia ruling. “I can see some legal basis for deporting Khalil, though I would argue that the punishment is disproportionate. I see no valid rationale whatsoever to not bring Abrego García home, so I’m glad the Supreme Court is making the correct choice on that,” one respondent said.

Have a nice day.

While dining out in Pittsburgh with her young son, Tamie Konzier noticed an older waitress struggling to move around the restaurant. Konzier learned that the waitress, Betty, suffered from chronic back pain but couldn’t afford to retire. “I’m 81, but I can still outdo all these whippersnappers,” Betty said. Konzier was inspired by Betty’s positivity and turned to TikTok to share her story. Her post sparked a huge community response, raising over $300,000 in donations for the waitress. “She is a sweet, deserving woman,” Konzier said. Today has the story.

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