US, Iran far from Hormuz deal as Trump says clock ticking

The U.S. and Iran remained far apart Sunday on a deal to end weeks of war and reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz, as a drone attack sparked a fire at a United Arab Emirates nuclear plant, spotlighting the risks of a fragile ceasefire.

President Donald Trump made clear his patience is wearing thin, posting on social media Sunday that “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said the U.S. had set five main conditions for a peace deal, including the removal of uranium used by Iran’s nuclear program to the U.S., no U.S. reparations to Tehran and the unfreezing of less than a quarter of Iran’s suspended assets. Fars didn’t give a source for the information, and the U.S. hasn’t publicly commented on such stipulations.

Meanwhile, the semi-official Mehr news agency said Washington offered “no tangible concessions” while seeking “to obtain concessions that it failed to obtain during the war, which will lead to an impasse in the negotiations.”

Trump met Saturday with Vice President JD Vance, White House envoy Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe to discuss the war, Axios reported Sunday. He is expected to meet again with his national security team on Tuesday.

“We want to make a deal,” Trump told Axios, adding he’s waiting for an updated Iranian proposal. “They are not where we want them to be. They will have to get there or they will be hit badly, and they don’t want that.”

Since the ceasefire began on April 8, Trump has repeatedly threatened to resume the bombing campaign that began on Feb. 28.

Sunday’s drone attack in the UAE sparked a blaze in an electrical generator outside the inner perimeter of the Barakah power plant and had no impact on radiological safety, Abu Dhabi’s media office said in a statement. Authorities were working to extinguish the conflagration, which didn’t cause any injury, it said.

The drone that hit the power plant was one of three fired from west of the emirate, the UAE defense ministry said in a social media post. The other two were intercepted. The UAE said it was investigating the source of the attack. Saudi Arabia, which borders the UAE to the west, condemned the attack.

Saudi Arabia reported fresh drone attacks on Sunday, saying three unmanned aerial vehicles were intercepted and destroyed after entering its airspace from Iraq, German press agency dpa reported.The drones were shot down on Sunday morning, the Defense Ministry said in a statement on X

Iranian threats on shipping in the Persian Gulf have brought the region’s energy exports to a near-standstill, sending global prices soaring and giving Tehran significant leverage in talks with the U.S. 

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has claimed thousands of lives, mainly in the Islamic Republic. Retaliatory attacks by Tehran targeted U.S. allies across the Gulf, including the UAE, which has carried out intermittent strikes on Iran in response, Bloomberg has reported.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, briefing his cabinet about the Iran crisis, said he would speak to Trump later on Sunday for an update on the China visit. A member of Netanyahu’s security cabinet, Zev Elkin, said the country was poised to resume strikes on Iran should Trump decide to do so.

“We have targets that we want to hit, of course,” Elkin told Kan radio. “The current situation, with the U.S. blockade continuing, would also be good for Israel, because it’s wreaking major damage upon the Iranian economy on a daily basis.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said his country is committed to a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. Several energy shipments have managed to clear the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks, and an Iranian official said this weekend authorities were working on a formal law and framework to allow passage for some vessels.

The U.S. and China, the world’s two largest economies, sought to emphasize points of agreement on the Middle East conflict when Trump met last week with China’s Xi Jinping, an ally of Iran.

On his way back from Asia, Trump told reporters he had discussed with the Chinese leader potentially lifting sanctions on Chinese oil companies that buy Iranian crude. The Treasury Department has escalated the penalties in recent weeks as the U.S. tries to pressure Tehran on talks, while Beijing has ordered its companies to ignore the sanctions.

“I’m going to make a decision over the next few days,” Trump said aboard Air Force One when asked if he’d consider lifting the sanctions. “We did talk about that.”

Trump said in an interview with Fox News that three Chinese tankers that went through Hormuz loaded with Iranian oil this week did so because the U.S. allowed it. Iranian state TV had previously said over 30 ships were allowed passage through the strait since Wednesday night, citing an official from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ navy. 

The White House faces a conundrum: How to reopen the strait, lower global energy prices and wind down an increasingly unpopular conflict that has caused the biggest oil supply disruption in history ahead of midterm elections in November.

Brent crude has jumped about 50% since the start of the war, with traders fearing a fresh escalation in hostilities between the U.S. and Iran after Trump’s visit to China failed to yield any concrete progress on a plan to restart the Strait of Hormuz.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi arrived in Tehran on Saturday, where he met his Iranian counterpart. The two discussed bilateral relations and the prospects for resuming U.S.-Iran peace negotiations, for which Pakistan has been the main mediator, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Iran’s highly enriched uranium, which has been in an unknown location since a U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign in June last year, remains one of many obstacles to a peace agreement.

Elkin said the enriched uranium was not out of reach. “One could certainly get to it, if there’s a willingness,” he said. 

Here’s more related to the war:

▪ Israel’s economy slumped in the first quarter of the year when the fallout of the war with Iran imposed security-related shutdowns on businesses for more than a month.

▪ Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was named Iran’s special envoy for China affairs, according to Fars.

With assistance from Dan Williams and Kevin Whitelaw.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published May 17, 2026 at 12:59 PM.