President Trump held a conference call with leaders from across the Middle East on Saturday to discuss progress toward ending the U.S.-Iran conflict and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, then blindsided them with a demand none of them saw coming. He told the assembled heads of state that any country wanting a seat at the table for an Iran peace agreement must first normalize relations with Israel by signing the Abraham Accords.
The response, as the Daily Mail reported, was dead air. Arab leaders refused to respond, remaining entirely silent on the call. Trump, apparently aware he had landed in unfamiliar diplomatic territory, broke the quiet with a quip: "Are they still there?"
He then ended the call by announcing that envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff would follow up with those same leaders in the weeks ahead on the normalization question. The silence may have been awkward. The strategy behind it was not.
The Saturday call included leaders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Trump used the occasion, originally convened around the Iran negotiations, to fold in a second, far larger diplomatic objective: expanding the Abraham Accords he first brokered in 2020, which normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.
The linkage was deliberate. Breitbart reported that Trump's call also included leaders from Pakistan, Jordan, and Bahrain, and that Trump framed Abraham Accords participation as mandatory for any country involved in the Iran deal negotiations.
Trump made the point explicit on Truth Social on Sunday:
"I would like to thank, thus far, all of the countries of the Middle East for their support and cooperation, which will be further enhanced and strengthened by their joining the Nations of the historic Abraham Accords."
He followed that with a line that would have been unthinkable a year ago: "Who knows, perhaps the Islamic Republic of Iran would like to join, as well!"
In a separate post, Trump laid down the marker even more firmly. The New York Post reported that Trump stated participation in the Iran nuclear deal should be contingent on signing the Abraham Accords, writing that he told the leaders it "should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords." He added: "If they don't, they should not be part of this Deal in that it shows bad intention."
The conference call came against the backdrop of active but fragile negotiations between Washington and Tehran. Trump announced on Truth Social that the Iranian peace agreement was "largely negotiated" but still "subject to finalization." He also declared that "in addition to many other elements of the Agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened."
That optimism ran into reality by Monday. The Wall Street Journal reported that peace talks between the U.S. and Iran stalled, with both sides reaching an impasse over Tehran's uranium stockpile and the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets. Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Doha on Monday for continued negotiations, but progress had ground to a halt.
Iran, for its part, offered a narrower description of what was on the table. Tehran said the deal under negotiation doesn't include any immediate concessions to its nuclear program, only a commitment to discuss the issue during a 60-day period, with the current talks centered on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. A diplomatic source told Nikkei that Iran was set to open the strait within 30 days of securing a deal with the U.S.
Trump had previously warned the Iran cease-fire was near collapse, and the Monday stall confirmed the fragility of the process.
The president responded to the impasse with characteristic bluntness, posting a meme on Truth Social depicting himself pressuring a cartoon figure representing Iran to negotiate. He also drew a sharp contrast with his predecessor's approach, writing: "It will be the exact opposite of the JCPOA disaster negotiated by the failed Obama Administration, which was a direct and open path to a Nuclear Weapon for Iran."
Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 JCPOA during his first term, calling it "the worst deal in history." That withdrawal set the stage for the current round of direct negotiations, conducted not through multilateral frameworks but through Trump's own envoys.
What makes the Saturday call significant is not just the silence it produced but the strategic logic behind it. Trump is attempting something no previous president has tried: using an Iran deal as leverage to force a broader regional realignment around Israel.
The original Abraham Accords brought four nations, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, into normalized relations with Israel. The addition of Saudi Arabia, the largest Sunni Arab power, has been the white whale of Middle East diplomacy for decades. Egypt and Jordan already have peace treaties with Israel, but broader normalization among Gulf and Muslim-majority states has remained elusive.
Israel's standing among Arab nations has plummeted in the wake of the Gaza war, which has reportedly killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. That context makes Trump's demand all the more ambitious, and all the more uncomfortable for the leaders on the other end of the line.
UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed was among those who told Trump he supported the deal to end the war with Iran. But support for an Iran deal and support for Israel normalization are two very different things in the domestic politics of most Arab states. That gap explains the silence.
Trump's envoys, Kushner and Witkoff, have been leading negotiations across multiple fronts, Iran, Russia-Ukraine, and the Israel-Gaza conflict. Their deployment on the Abraham Accords follow-up signals that the White House views this not as a side issue but as a central pillar of its broader Middle East strategy. The same envoys were recently pulled from a Pakistan trip when Trump told Iran to pick up the phone.
The economic stakes are enormous. The Strait of Hormuz is the world's most important oil chokepoint. Its closure during the U.S.-Iran conflict has rattled global energy markets and driven prices higher. On hopes of a deal, global benchmark Brent crude dropped to $97 per barrel, its lowest price in more than a month.
Trump framed the reopening of the strait as a key deliverable of the emerging agreement. If Iran follows through on the reported 30-day timeline, the relief for global oil supply chains would be immediate and tangible.
But the Monday stall over uranium stockpiles and frozen assets introduces real uncertainty. Iran wants its money. The U.S. wants nuclear concessions. Neither side has blinked.
The broader military context looms over every negotiating session. Trump has not hesitated to use force during this conflict, as demonstrated when he declared that a strike in Tehran killed multiple Iranian military leaders. That backdrop gives the diplomatic track its urgency, and its credibility.
Several open questions remain. The exact terms of the "largely negotiated" Iran agreement have not been made public beyond the Strait of Hormuz commitment and the 60-day nuclear discussion window. The specifics of the impasse over uranium stockpiles and asset unfreezing are unclear. And the Arab leaders who sat in silence on Saturday have not publicly responded to Trump's Abraham Accords demand.
Trump said on Sunday that the U.S. relationship with Iran was "becoming a much more professional and productive one" and urged Iran to "understand" that it could not develop a nuclear weapon. He also noted the agreement was "subject to finalization", a hedge that suggests the White House knows this is far from done.
The political dynamics in Washington add another layer. Senator John Fetterman recently delivered the deciding vote to preserve Trump's authority on Iran, a reminder that the president's diplomatic hand depends partly on domestic support that can shift without warning.
The original Abraham Accords were announced by Fox News as a historic peace agreement between Israel and the UAE. Expanding them to include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan, Jordan, and Bahrain, let alone Iran, would represent a transformation of the Middle Eastern order that no American president has achieved.
Whether the silence on that Saturday call was a prelude to capitulation or resistance remains the central question. Trump is betting that the desire for an Iran deal is strong enough to drag reluctant Arab leaders across a line they have spent decades refusing to cross.
It's a high-wire act. But the man on the wire has been here before, and the people who bet against him have a losing record.
