تابع رؤية 2030
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Oil exports from the U.S. and its ‘Americas’ sphere of influence continue to be the prime beneficiary from the drop in crude output leaving the Middle East. Industry figures showed dirty tanker shipments from the Americas hit an all-time high of 14.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in May, up from 13.8 million bpd in April, and a 40% increase from May 2025. Meanwhile, transits through the key Strait of Hormuz global oil route dropped 89% from February to May, with total ship movements dropping from over 3,700 to around 400. “The pattern is likely to continue even when the Strait [of Hormuz] opens up again, as it’ll take months for Middle East volumes to recover to their former levels [before the U.S./Israel-Iran conflict], and some key sites will take several years to do so,” a senior source who works closely with the European Union’s (E.U.) energy security complex exclusively told OilPrice.com last week. “Meanwhile, the U.S. has ramped up its own [oil] production to record levels and is helping countries in the Americas -- Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil, mainly -- to do the same,” he added. “It marks a long-term shift in the centre of the world’s global oil and gas gravity,” he underlined. This is precisely what U.S. President Donald Trump wanted to do from his first day in his first term as president, given his extreme dislike of OPEC’s use of its cartel powers over the years against the core interests of Washington and its allies, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. This was first notably seen in the 1973 Oil Crisis in which Saudi Arabia rallied fellow OPEC members into imposing an oil embargo on the U.S. and its allies following their support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. By the end of the embargo in March 1974, the price of oil had risen from around US$3 per barrel to nearly US$11 per barrel, which stoked the fire of a global economic slowdown, especially felt in the West. Then-Saudi Minister of Oil and Mineral Reserves, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, highlighted that this marked a fundamental shift in the world balance of power between the developing nations that produced oil and the developed industrial nations that consumed it. However, with the rise of U.S. shale oil production from around 2010, and OPEC’s attempt to destroy the nascent sector through an Oil Price War from 2014-2016 failing catastrophically, Trump has wanted to critically undermine the cartel’s ability to damage U.S. and allied interests ever since. Indeed, in the subsequent 2020 Oil Price War involving OPEC and started by Saudi Arabia for the same reason as in 2014, Trump expedited progress of the ‘No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act’ (NOPEC), which would open the way for sovereign governments to be sued for predatory pricing and failure to comply with the U.S.’s antitrust laws. It could also break up Saudi Arabian oil supergiant Aramco -- the mainstay of the Kingdom’s existing economic and political systems -- into constituent parts, effectively destroying it. Related: European Gas Prices Tumble 6% On US-Iran Peace Deal Instead, as delineated in the U.S.’s ‘2025 National Security Strategy’, Trump wants the world’s geopolitical system split into three geographical spheres, dominated by a major power in each. China would hold the primary role in Asia, while Russia would either dominate or significantly influence Europe, depending on how any future conflict between European NATO members and Moscow unfolds. But, at the top, the U.S. would maintain overall dominance and exert direct influence across the Americas (North and South America). Naturally, as energy underpins the economies -- and thus politics -- of every country in the world, shifting the centre of dominance in global energy supplies to the Americas is a core part of that aim. The U.S. is playing its part toward that, pumping oil at record highs, around a baseline of 13.6 million bpd, with plans for more down the line. Of the other major oil-producing countries in the Americas, Venezuela is top of Washington’s development agenda, followed by Argentina and then Brazil. Following the landmark removal from power of Nicolás Maduro on 3 January by the U.S., Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined a three-phase plan for the South American oil giant that involved stabilising the country and averting economic collapse, recovering the economy and oil sector, and encouraging an eventual political transition. These efforts have already seen a positive trajectory in oil production, with Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) and its foreign partners averaging 1.155 million bpd of crude production in May, compared to 1.130 million bpd in April and 940,0000 b/d in January. In April, executive vice president Jovanny Martinez, said that the country expects to produce 1.37 million bpd by the end of 2026. There is plenty of scope to do so, as Venezuela still holds the world’s largest proven crude reserves -- roughly 303 billion barrels, or about 17% of the global total -- and of its 14 supergiant oil fields, 11 retain more than half of their original reserves. Most of this is extra-heavy crude oil from the Orinoco Belt that requires more technical expertise to handle than lighter grades but is cheaper to lift and often more profitable to process. With those bottlenecks being addressed, it could again produce millions of barrels per day of cheap-to-lift crude, even if downstream handling remained costly. In fact, as recently as 2008, Venezuela was producing around 3 million bpd of crude oil. One level down in Trump’s list of energy development priorities is Argentina, with Washington having provided a US$20 billion lifeline to the country in October 2025. This was explicitly intended to support President Javier Milei’s pro-market reforms and stabilise the economy for foreign investment. The ‘Reciprocal Trade and Investment Agreement’, which fast-tracks U.S. investment in strategic sectors, including energy and critical minerals, was then signed on 4 February this year. Against this backdrop, several U.S. companies are increasing their oil and gas investment there, particularly in the Vaca Muerta shale formation, which is now being referred to as another Permian Basin due to its scale. Continental Resources recently purchased non-operating interests in four blocks in the Vaca Muerta basin to accelerate expansion, while Chevron is leaning toward making Vaca Muerta a core asset in its global portfolio. Meanwhile, Baker Hughes secured a major order in early 2026 to supply gas compression units for the San Matias Pipeline, supporting gas transport from Vaca Muerta. Overall, Argentina is on track to reach 1 million bpd of oil this year, up 26% from 2025. That said, Brazil is now producing a record-breaking 4 million bpd and over of crude oil, and including natural gas, total hydrocarbon output has hit a new record of 5.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d). Industry forecasts are that it may well become one of the world’s top five oil producers by 2030, supported by extensive investment plans from Petrobras and foreign oil companies. These include supermajors from the U.S., focusing now on high-impact exploration and deepwater production rather than the maturing fields. Last October, for example, ExxonMobil achieved its first-ever upstream production in Brazil at the Bacalhau field, which has a capacity of 220,000 bpd. Chevron was awarded new offshore blocks alongside Petrobras and ExxonMobil last June, and Baker Hughes and Halliburton supply equipment and engineering for Petrobras’s US$109 billion five-year investment plan. Washington is cognisant not just of Brazil’s further massive oil and gas potential but also of its geopolitical importance as one of the original ‘BRIC’ (Brazil, Russia, India, China) emerging-market powerhouses, and its geographical position in the U.S.’s ‘backyard’. With China weakened economically from where it was before Covid, and Russia near economic and military collapse as the war in Ukraine drags into its fifth year, Washington may never have a better opportunity to put Trump’s new world order into place. The Americas hemisphere already accounts for 32% of global crude production and is growing every year, with new supply from the U.S. Permian Basin, offshore Guyana, Argentine shale, and increased flows from Brazil and Venezuela. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs, Caleb Orr, highlighted recently that Ecuador and El Salvador are also among the governments Washington works with “hand in glove” on security. He added that security is the “table stakes” for any productive economic relationship and the foundation of the broad-based change in the Americas. The sentiments have been underlined by National Energy Dominance Council executive director Jarrod Agen, who recently said: “The Western Hemisphere is now the leading driver of energy in the world; we are the centre of the energy world from Alaska down to Venezuela, and what we want is the crude product coming out of Alaska, coming out of Venezuela, coming into U.S. refineries, getting refined, and then exporting to the world.” By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

After more than 100 days of the greatest recorded disruption to the world’s energy supplies, the global oil and gas markets have breathed a sigh of relief. Hours after Donald Trump confirmed that a US-Iran peace deal would lead to the reopening of the strait of Hormuz for tankers carrying millions of barrels of oil and gas, the price of Brent crude tumbled to lows of $82 a barrel. Wholesale gas prices fell about 6%. The international oil benchmark remains well above the $69 a barrel average recorded last year but the slump from $126 a barrel at the peak of the crisis could mean that the global economy avoids the worst-case consequences predicted in the early days of the US war on Iran. The 11th-hour deal has emerged weeks before the oil market was forecast to enter a “red zone” in which soaring summer demand during the travel season was expected to collide with fast-depleting crude stockpiles. 10:03 Will US-Iran peace deal hold? - The Latest But even as the market exhales after weeks of unprecedented disruption, uncertainty remains: a return to pre-crisis normality is months away and relies on the cooperation of the Iranian regime with the White House. In the US, where Trump faces midterm elections later this year, soaring road fuel prices through the summer driving season represented a real political risk to the Trump administration. “Trump has to sell this at home as a victory,” said Bjarne Schieldrop, the chief commodities analyst at SEB. When the deal is finalised, US consumers can expect “lower gasoline price and maybe US Republicans survive the midterm elections”, he said. For Iran, a gradual reopening “is tactically preferable”, too, according to Schieldrop, in preventing global governments from restocking their crude stores too quickly and allowing Tehran to maintain its political leverage through its negotiations with the US. The US and Iran are due to sign the “great deal” on Friday, according to Trump, before the strait is reopened “for purposes of mine removal”, a process which could take up to seven weeks during the 60-day negotiation period over the terms of Iran’s nuclear phaseout. Despite the sharp fall in global oil and gas markets in response, prices may now remain between $80 and $90 a barrel over the rest of the year as buyers race to refill the heavily depleted emergency crude stockpiles. Market observers believe it could be late July before minesweepers can assure mainstream shipping companies, and their insurers, that the trade route that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and gas is clear to play a role in the Gulf’s long journey back to pre-crisis exports. About a quarter of mainstream oil tankers that were in the Gulf at the onset of the crisis have managed to leave the Middle East over the past three months, according to recent data from the shipping intelligence company Lloyd’s List, meaning more than 160 vessels have been stranded in the Middle East Gulf for more than 100 days. “Even if ships now have safe passage, tankers are in the wrong place, oil production and refining facilities need to get up to full capacity, and questions over the cost and availability of insurance for ships traversing the strait will remain,” according to Neil Shearing, the chief economist at Capital Economics. About 80% of crude flows could resume by the end of the third quarter, Shearing said, but exports of gas could take longer because of the damage from Iranian drone strikes on Qatar’s gas processing facilities during the conflict in a blow to countries, including the UK, which are exposed to the economic impact of global gas prices. Fertiliser is likely to be at the back of the queue, added Alexis Ellender, a dry bulk analyst at the shipping intelligence company Kpler. “Fertiliser is not as high a priority,” Ellender told Bloomberg. “When it comes to moving ships through the strait of Hormuz, it’s going to be oil tankers and [liquefied natural gas] carriers that are top of the list once we get towards a more normal flow of traffic.” View image in fullscreen Donald Trump faces midterm elections this year. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images The strikes forced QatarEnergy, the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas, to halt production, effectively erasing 20% of the world’s LNG at a stroke. The extensive damage to its Ras Laffan complex could mean that it takes years before it is operating at full capacity, spelling higher prices as buyers vie to secure cargoes from a smaller pool of gas producers. Oil exports from the Gulf could take until next year to reach pre-crisis levels, according to analysts at Rystad Energy, because of the challenge of restarting ageing oilfields in Iraq and Kuwait that were shut within weeks of the strait closure as regional storage facilities were filled to the brim. “Full pre-conflict traffic volume is realistically a 2027 story, and only if the agreement holds without incident and production recovers at pace,” said David Jorbenaze, the global oil market leader at Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS). The lag between Trump’s victory clarion call and a full market recovery means that at least some economic pain will continue. Shearing said: “Even if the deal reopens the strait immediately, it will not prevent inflation from rising a bit further in the near term, nor will it avoid some economic damage.” Still, he predicts even a slightly rosier outlook could mean that rather than face a recession, the global economy will face a period of weaker than previously expected growth in the third quarter, before global GDP growth recovers to its pre-conflict pace of just over 3% in late 2026 and into 2027.

It would be hard to find a human on Earth unaffected by the US-Israel war against Iran. Several thousand have been killed. Millions are paying more each day in steeper food prices or at the petrol pump, and as inflation eats away at the value of their earnings. For many, the final bill has not yet come, but it will eventually. They will pay for the long-term damage caused by the biggest threat of all to the global economy: uncertainty. Uncertainty is hard to measure, but one way is to look at geopolitical risk, which stalls investment and employment. The US Federal Reserve economists Dario Caldara and Matteo Iacoviello have created an index that tracks reports of global tension. It shows the Iran war has been more destabilising than the Covid-19 pandemic, but on a par with either the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 or that of Iraq in 2003. So how does the world tally the cost of this war? Some costs are easier to calculate than others, such as bills for surface-to-air missiles that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Others are harder to quantify, including the damage caused to Iranian and Lebanese hospitals and power networks. Much cannot be valued at all – the lives lost, including the 120 primary schoolchildren in Iran killed on the first day of the war. Then there are hypothetical costs. A senior UN aid official framed the conflict in terms of opportunity cost, noting that the $2bn (£1.5bn) a day spent on military operations could otherwise cover lifesaving aid for roughly 87 million people. And what about the beneficiaries of this war, the oil companies and the shareholders of arms manufacturers? Here are some ways the impact of the war has been assessed: Lives lost The vast majority of the killings have targeted Iranian and Lebanese people. In Iran, US and Israel bombings have killed more than 3,300 people and injured more than ten times that number, according to Iranian authorities. Twenty schools have been destroyed, and 240 health and medical facilities have been damaged. Water pipes have been blown up and cultural sites damaged, including five world heritage sites and 54 museums. View image in fullscreen Among the lives lost were 120 primary schoolchildren killed on the first day of the war in Iran. Photograph: Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News/WANA/Reuters Israel opened a second front of the war when it invaded its northern neighbour, Lebanon, where it is fighting against the Iran-allied militant group Hezbollah. That war within a war has now become the most deadly part of the broader conflict – Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,700 people, according to Lebanese authorities, including women, children and medics. The widespread Israeli bombing of civilian areas has displaced more than 1 million Lebanese people – roughly a fifth of the country’s population. More than 100 people have been killed in Iraq, where Iran-allied groups operate, and in Israel, about 50 people have been killed. Since the start of the Iran war on 28 February, at least 15 US military personnel have died, and American bases across the region have been significant damaged. Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, faced Iranian drone and missile attacks, which have killed civilians and damaged hotels, airports, and critical oil and gas infrastructure. Israeli forces have not halted the killing of Palestinians during the conflict, including dozens in Gaza and the West Bank, adding to the more than 70,000 killed in Palestine since the Gaza war began in 2023. Stunted global economic growth For years, Israel had pushed the US to bomb Iran, but no administration in Washington agreed, seeing it as counterproductive and fearing the political, security and economic chaos that is now playing out. The conflict has not achieved regime change or ended Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but instead left governments and businesses scrambling in the fallout. A peace deal has been announced but the terms, or how it will be implemented, remain unclear. View image in fullscreen Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may have been killed but the war has not achieved regime change. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images In its World Economic Outlook published in April, the International Monetary Fund said the global economy was already on edge after “higher trade barriers and elevated uncertainty last year”, alluding to Donald Trump’s tariff war. The IMF and the World Bank have marked down their forecasts for the global economy, showing how the Iran war has stalled growth. Economists at the investment bank Goldman Sachs estimate that US economic growth will be 0.5 percentage points lower as a result of the war. Even if the war ends swiftly, the US will take years to pay it off. Not even the White House denies that the war will be a massive cost, but ithas attempted to play down its probable price tag. One estimate in May came from a senior Pentagon official, who said the conflict had cost $29bn by then. Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, wrote in the New York Times that when accounting for the full macroeconomic fallout, a typical US household would probably have to pay thousands – or even tens of thousands – of dollars for the war. Severe business shocks have started to emerge. The world’s largest carmaker, Toyota, has reported a £3bn hit, as prices of parts and materials soared and sales dropped. A doubling of jet fuel prices The International Energy Agency, the world’s energy watchdog set up in the 1970s as a response to an oil crisis, has been clear in its assessment of the impact of the conflict on fossil fuels. “The war in the Middle East is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” it said. View image in fullscreen The war as created the largest-ever disruption to oil supply, according to the International Energy Agency. Photograph: AP Responding to the US-Israeli bombing, Iran closed the strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which about 20% of the world’s oil and gas supply previously moved. Facing calls to reopen the waterway, Trump put pressure on Iran to end its blockade, but failed and later decided to impose his own blockade, leading to more fuel price hikes and threats of long-term inflation. Jet fuel prices have doubled, and thousands of flights have been cut. One US-based airline has already gone under. While the deal announced this week led oil prices to drop, they only reduced by a few US dollars. With oil prices hitting highs, the big energy companies’ profits have soared. Defence contractors are also profiting from the insecurity and rush to buy anti-missile technology. Shareholders, too, are celebrating that stock markets have shown resilience, in large part because of the AI boom, although there are concerns that traders are not properly considering the risk of long-term upheaval. There is hope, however, that in the long-term the crisis could reshape the global energy order, spotlighting a reliance on Middle East fossil fuels and accelerating a move towards renewables. A new crisis during a cost of living crisis View image in fullscreen Vietnam and other countries in Asia have rationed fuel. Photograph: Khanh Vu/Reuters The closure has created a bottleneck in which energy disruptions cascade through chemicals and fertiliser production into food prices, amplifying losses for the world’s poorest countries. There are already signs of the war’s burden on people and businesses worldwide. In Asia, the most populous continent, restaurants have closed owing to a lack of cooking gas and petrol stations are rationing fuel. In Thailand, some temples have stopped cremations. View image in fullscreen More than 800 ships and about 20,000 crew members remain stranded west of the strait of Hormuz. Photograph: Reuters More than 800 ships and roughly 20,000 crew members remain stranded west of the narrow waterway. The consequent rise in the oil price has fuelled fears of damaging inflation. Last month, Turkey’s central bank raised its year-end inflation forecast to 26% from 16%. Meanwhile, exports of vital goods, such as fertilisers required for food production, have collapsed. The UN estimates that 32 million people could be plunged into poverty as a result of the war, largely through its impact on energy and fertiliser supplies.

Emmanuel Macron, the host of the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, has framed an agenda to make it as palatable as possible to his guest of honour, but the French president has no idea if Donald Trump, a haphazard summit attender, will last the full three days – or disrupt the proceedings every hour he stays. The US president quit the last G7 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, early to work on the Iran conflict, and this year, plus ça change, Iran may also draw presidential attention. For good measure, he insulted this summit’s host before leaving Canada last year, describing Macron as “publicity seeking” and adding: “Purposefully or not, Emmanuel Macron always gets it wrong.” Macron, who will be attending his 10th G7 summit, chose not to take umbrage, and has even postponed the start of the summit to allow Trump to celebrate his 80th birthday with a UFC event on the White House lawn. Macron is holding out a dinner in Versailles on Wednesday night as a reward if Trump stays the three days; French officials say Trump adores the palace’s gold, and insist the two men respect each other. It will be touch and go if Trump completes the summit. Reports out of Washington suggest the US president has not been in celebratory mood, and the temptation for him will be to insult his six fellow leaders – representing Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK – for lacking the loyalty to join his earlier plan to reopen the strait of Hormuz through force. At best, he will be demanding the planned Franco-British naval taskforce to enforce the restoration of freedom of navigation, as outlined in the US-Iran joint memorandum of understanding, moves quickly. De-mining is also urgently needed if the hundreds of tankers backed up in the strait are to reach the arteries of the world economy in time. View image in fullscreen Emmanuel Macron will issue a chairman’s summary on discussions over the conflicts in Gaza and Iran, and concise communiques after each working session on other topics. Photograph: Christophe Petit-Tesson/AFP/Getty Images The other G7 leaders – all opposed to the Iran war, with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, describing it as a US humiliation – will have to decide whether to look ahead, or pass verdict on a war that has upended the world economy. Trump appears to be in a state of denial about the economic impact of the war. He told Fox News last week that oil prices had not risen as much as many predicted, adding: “You know what I really love. I love the inflation.” The World Bank in a report on Thursday cut forecast world growth this year from 2.9% to 2.5%, taking growth to its lowest global level since the Covid pandemic. The Bank of Japan is expected to raise interest rates to a 31-year high, as wholesale prices have climbed at the fastest pace in three years. Europe’s central bank on Wednesday raised interest rates for the first time since 2023 amid fears of inflation going over 3% this year. The French central bank’s governor, Emmanuel Moulin, Macron’s former chief of staff, predicted “persistent” coming inflation. He may have noticed that container shipping rates have doubled since the start of the war, and are unlikely to decline soon. The French foreign ministry says the world’s poorest will suffer most as fertiliser and food prices soar. Commodity prices are to rise 22%, the World Bank predicts, against the 7% fall expected at the start of the year. Chronic indebtedness will worsen as interest rates rise. This was happening, the World Bank pointed out, as international development aid was falling “and is expected to decline further, stripping away one of the last remaining buffers that countries depend on to sustain schools, health care, and food assistance programmes”. Trump also faces being cornered by two other even more persistent wars – Ukraine and Gaza. Macron wants to see Europe given a greater role in solving both conflicts, pointing out it is Europe, not the US, that is saving Ukraine from bankruptcy. Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, is promoting the idea of an EU envoy for Ukraine – the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, has been mentioned – but Macron is sceptical about the post. European credibility on defence has also been weakened by the failure of the Franco-German FCAS fighter-jet project, while the resignation of the UK defence secretary, John Healey, shows Britain’s fiscal problems. Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend on Tuesday, and recent progress on the battlefield means the Ukrainian president can remind Trump he did hold more cards than the US president thought. However, at the same time, Ukraine’s civilian death toll in May was the highest since the war began. France will also be pressing for the US to resolve the impasse in Gaza over Hamas disarmament. Trump will meet leaders from Qatar, UAE and Egypt to discuss the crisis and the fallout from Iran. But there will be no attempt to sign a joint communique on the conflicts and Macron will instead issue a summary. The French president also plans to issue concise communiques after each working session; common ground will be sought on critical mineral supply chains, artificial intelligence, containing damage from geopolitical conflicts, and reforming international development partnerships. Tech titans attending the summit on Wednesday will include Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, and Arthur Mensch, the French founder of Mistral AI, giving Macron a chance to promote his regulatory initiatives – which include banning social media for those under 15 or 16. View image in fullscreen The climate crisis, normally a G7 staple, has been kept off the Évian agenda as it will provoke a row. Photograph: Harold Cunningham/Getty Images The climate crisis, normally a G7 staple, has been kept off the agenda as it will provoke a row. But in a deft piece of diplomacy, Macron has chosen to make global economic imbalances – code for booming Chinese exports and accusations that Chinese state subsidies are fuelling a record Chinese trade surplus – a centrepiece of the formal summit as it is a subject on which Europe and the US identify a shared culprit. Chinese success in high-value products such as electric vehicles has become all the more alarming for Europe as these are sectors the west thought it would dominate. For France and other EU states facing manufacturing job losses, it sounds at times as if the only solution will be protectionism and EU tariffs on Chinese products. But Macron has been careful to try to frame this debate as one of greater collective solidarity, as opposed to China-bashing, to prevent what remains of the multilateral trading system from fragmenting further. The G7 had to “help China to generate the internal demand that it really needs”, he explained at an event last week attended by video by the Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing. Europe for its part had to address under-investment, Macron said. Little that Zhang said strayed from the usual Chinese denial of unfair trade practices, arguing that the country could hardly be blamed for pursuing a successful industrial policy. If the worst comes to the worst, the Évian golf course – which dates back to 1904 – is closed for the three days, and if the earnest summitry gets too much, it represents an escape route for the world’s most famous 80-year-old golfer.

Iranian hardliners have mounted a rearguard rejection of a proposed deal with the US as backers in the regime defend themselves against charges it does not guarantee sanctions relief, compensation or control of the strait of Hormuz. “The fact that they say we won and America has retreated is a blatant lie,” the Iranian MP Kamran Ghazanfari said. Meysam Nili, the managing director of Rajanews and brother-in-law of the hardline former president Ebrahim Raisi, called the deal on the table a catastrophic capitulation. He urged Iranians not to sit quietly. Faced with the onslaught, Iranian officials led by Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to the head of the negotiating team, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, mounted a detailed rebuttal in an audio message insisting the deal would end the war, including Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, and that Tehran has not been required to make any new commitments on its nuclear programme, leaving the means of disposal of its highly enriched uranium – including down-blending inside Iran – to future discussions lasting 60 days. Mohammadi also said that by referring to “Iranian arrangements”, the text would allow Iran and Oman to charge fees for passage through the strait of Hormuz, and would even prevent Israeli commercial ships using the waterway. The US had fought hard to have the phrase “Iranian arrangements” excluded, he claimed, and in the second phase of the deal had agreed to lift primary sanctions for the first time. His explanation is sharply at odds with the critics on points of fact and interpretation, which he said was because they were working from outdated drafts. View image in fullscreen Vessels anchored in the strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on Sunday. ‘The strait is in our hands,’ said Mehdi Mohammadi. ‘We can close it any time we want.’ Photograph: Reuters On the nuclear programme, Mohammadi said the only statement in the text was that Iran would not build or purchase nuclear weapons, which he said was “what we have been saying for years”. He said the proposed deal was better for Iran than the 2015 nuclear pact agreed under Barack Obama that lifted sanctions in return for limits on its nuclear activities, because Tehran had shown it could control the strait of Hormuz. “This time, it is not like we will shut down the nuclear programme and wait for them to lift the sanctions,” he said. “There is no such wishful thinking. The strait is in our hands, we can close it any time we want at an hour.” He acknowledged that the text on the release of half of Iran’s frozen money held abroad, roughly $12bn (£9bn), had not been finalised. “We know that America will not give us money,” he said. “The Arab countries have pledged this money and are forced to give it, because we are above them and they have seen our power in the region and have tasted our power. One of the implications of this agreement is that the Arab countries have been forced to accept Iran’s sovereignty and superiority and participate in making concessions.” Critics in Iran aiming their fire at Ghalibaf and the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, are from a group in the parliament coalesced around the Paydari Front including Mahmoud Nabavian, a hardline member of the national security committee, commenters such as Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor-in-chief of the Kayhan newspaper, and a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who worked alongside Russia in Syria. The opponents have mounted protests outside the foreign ministry in Tehran, and launched a “we will not accept” hashtag. Government supporters say the Paydari Front is opposed to any deal and is not representative of ordinary Iranians, who know wars against superpowers rarely end in outright victory. Shariatmadari wrote in an open letter: “We must ask Mr Ghalibaf and Mr Araghchi, wasn’t closing the strait of Hormuz one of our country’s main levers in the Ramadan war, and wasn’t closing the strait blocking the enemy’s commercial and economic breathing space and bringing it close to suffocation?! With what logical justification and acceptable explanation are these gentlemen going to give up this fateful lever?! “They say ‘we will charge service fees from passing ships’! That’s it?! America and its allies have martyred former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic world shed the blood of dozens of nuclear scientists and high-ranking military commanders, hundreds of innocent people and oppressed students. They have caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage … and now by opening the strait of Hormuz and charging service fees (!) from passing ships, we are going to release their economic and commercial bottleneck?!” View image in fullscreen Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament and adviser to the head of the negotiating team, has been challenged over the plans to reopen the strait of Hormuz. Photograph: Iranian Parliament Speaker Office/Wana/Reuters The hardline Shia cleric and MP Hajatoleslam Naboyan, who acts as the de facto foreign affairs spokesman for the Paydari Front, appeared incredulous that the proposed agreement appeared to allow free commercial shipping in the strait. “Will Israeli commercial ships also be freed? It is the proposal of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said. “From now on, all Israeli ships, not military, all hostile countries, their ships and their movement in the strait of Hormuz must be freed.” The Khorosan newspaper expressed concern at the licence given to the critics of the proposed agreement. “If the regime is going to grant freedom of speech and assembly to this group so that they can chant slogans against the negotiations and the negotiators, similar freedom must be given to those in favour of the agreement so that they can also gather and march in support of the regime’s decision to end the war, sign the agreement, and even resume relations with the United States,” it said. “Then it will become clear that the majority of the Iranian people support the regime’s will for the agreement, and the minority cannot impose its will on the regime and the nation through shouting, using the national radio and television, abusing the gatherings.” The hardliner’s criticism may help Donald Trump as the US president seeks to justify the deal as better than Obama’s. The two deals are not directly comparable, however, because the 2015 deal was a specific and detailed arms control agreement while the memorandum is focused on the preconditions for a ceasefire. Trump, who faces accusations that he has only achieved an agreement through a disruptive, expensive and illegal war that he could have reached through diplomacy, needs evidence that it is superior to the one Obama struck and from which he withdraw the US in 2018.