American and Iranian negotiators, who had been working on a list of what they agree and disagree on, packed up their notebooks in Doha on Wednesday having negotiated on almost nothing, except how they will talk to each other next. The two sides agreed to establish a communication mechanism that is supposed to guarantee the terms of the memorandum of understanding that they signed two weeks ago would be met, although there were still some issues of disagreement in the implementation of it. President Donald Trump, who was on Air Force One bound for North Dakota, expressed his satisfaction about the sessions, saying they're “very good,” and emphasized that the talks on denuclearization of Iran are going “very well.” That was the type of positive spin that's been used around nearly every round of this negotiation since the ceasefire became reality, and once again exceeded reality in the room.

The Doha round facilitated by Qatar and Pakistan began on Tuesday night and continued into Wednesday and was not a principals' meeting, but a series of meetings between chief negotiators and technical experts. While Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff were both in the air, they did not attend the technical sessions and instead used the trip to meet with Qatar's prime minister and to set the groundwork for future rounds. That alone is an indication: 14 days into a sixty-day period designed to yield a full nuclear deal, it isn't about centrifuges, it's about how to negotiate.

The most controversial Doha statement is about money. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told the state media that a communication channel has been agreed upon to record violations of the memorandum and that part of the approximately six billion dollars of Iranian assets frozen under the agreement would be released so Tehran could buy goods according to its needs, by Thursday. Saudi-owned Al Arabiya took it one step further, saying it had an understanding on releasing a first tranche of three billion dollars in Iranian money stuck in Qatar. Officials in the U.S. rejected the claims outright. This is not a new trend. Almost a week earlier, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had made a similar announcement in a victory speech on state broadcaster IRNA that six billion of the 12 billion dollars of Iranian resources held in Doha would be released, but Washington had denied that any release had taken place. The funds in question date back to 2023 when about six billion dollars was transferred from South Korea's oil payments to Qatari accounts as part of a prisoner swap, and then again frozen after the October 7 attacks soured relations between Washington and Tehran. Since then, however, Iranian negotiators have escalated their demands, seeking twenty-four billion dollars as a first tranche, in the midst of some hundred twenty billion dollars in Iranian assets frozen in accounts in the United States, South Korea, Japan, Iraq, and China. Each Iranian official release comes on the heels of another and each time it is spun domestically as indication of the interim deal's benefits. Each of these denials by an American official serves as a reminder that Washington still has the upper hand. Both are engaged in real political work at home, hence neither has any reason to allow the ambiguity to be settled.

The real flashpoint that poses a real danger to the entire situation is the Strait of Hormuz. The main discussion was on the strait as the American side has said Iran would benefit much more from a nuclear agreement than from collecting tanker tolls. When Iran lifts sanctions, it will be able to sell oil without restrictions and that will be a hundred times more valuable to the Iranians than what officials in Washington would call a "gangster tactic to charge a toll," an American official told Axios. The stance of two senior Iranian sources is that Tehran is seeking international acceptance of its administrative control over the waterway and the ability to charge shipping fees on the waterway, even at the price of a reopening of the conflict with the United States. According to the current memorandum, Iran committed itself to allowing toll-free passage for 60 days, though the fine print according to Tehran means it maintains its right to determine which ships will be allowed which way through the strait once that 60-day period expires on about August 16.

The economics of that argument are not esoteric. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the Strait of Hormuz transports approximately 17 million bpd of crude and condensates, accounting for about 20% of global oil consumption, and approximately 20% of the world's LNG trade. A tanker's normal transshipment cost, which is around one quarter of one per cent of its value, has suddenly jumped to $3 to $8m, depending on when war-risk insurance premiums were taken up, when Iran mine-layed and blockaded the strait this year. Brokers at one time reported premiums up by nearly 4000 per cent at the high point, before leveling off in that high, but lower, range. That repricing hasn't been complete and shipping has restarted; industry analysts cited by Khaleej Times say that underwriters don't want to forget the memory of nine to 15 tankers damaged this year, and mine-clearance operations in the strait could take up to six months, according to the American defense estimates.

The other half of that story is in the crude price, and that's trending in a way that hobbles Tehran's negotiating position almost daily. Brent hit a fifty-two-week high above one hundred twenty six dollars a barrel during the worst of the fighting, and was trading under sixty eight dollars per barrel on Thursday, its lowest level since before the war began, and was set for its biggest quarterly drop since 2020. WTI fell even more, breaking sixty-eight dollars. With U.S. military assistance, crude through the strait has risen above 10 million bpd, and Iranian oil exports have risen to more than 40 million bpd since Washington lifted its naval blockade and Russian ones have reached a record high, further adding to the seaborne inventory glut that's pushing prices lower. The paradox lurking beneath the toll battle is that the more oil Iran can sell while it is under the sanctions waiver, the less any potential Hormuz fee will be worth collecting, and the more it fills an already oversupplied marketplace. Whether Iranian negotiators are willing to admit it or not, the Trump administration's argument to Tehran, that a completed deal is worth much more than a toll booth, is being proven in real time by the tape.

Within Washington, opinion on the deal is far from unanimous, either. During his visit to Virginia, Vice President JD Vance argued that the negotiating strategy is one of strength, not retreat, even though Trump is negotiating from a position of strength thanks to you, and that the administration would never strike to drop bombs. He lashed out at his right-wing critics who, he said, had recommended that previous administrations continue to bomb in countries such as Afghanistan without ever defining the “conditions for victory.” But that line hasn't prevented Republican hawks like Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham from claiming publicly that the administration is settling for a deal that leaves Iran's military and nuclear hardware largely in place, nor has it stopped some Democrats like Senator Chris Murphy from going the other way and saying that the war never accomplished its so-called objectives and may actually have strengthened Tehran than it did before the conflict began. But here in Washington, it's a rare instance when both hawks and doves are uncomfortable with the same solution for opposite reasons.

Notably, Israel was never at the table, and has certainly made an effort to make this known. PM Benjamin Netanyahu's government has taken a step back from the memorandum despite an opening clause that says it is binding on the United States, Iran and their allies, a category that Israeli officials never thought included them. The objection is substantive, not procedural: The deal as written does not address the key issues that Israel sees as the war's goals: to dismantle Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and to create conditions for the regime's collapse but rather to reward Tehran for enduring the war.

Doha will, therefore, be not a breakthrough, but a holding pattern with real economic consequences. The frozen-funds battle is primarily a domestic public relations ploy on both sides. The real fault line isn't the Hormuz toll fight, and the world energy market has already started to discount Tehran's economic future is in export, not extortion, even as it continues to claim sovereignty it can't translate into revenues. When disturbances are of this magnitude, they can change trading routes and investment patterns long after the guns have fallen silent, and Gulf countries that had developed workarounds during the crisis including the UAE's Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, which skips the strait altogether may not be willing to give up those newfound comforts now that they've been paid for. But the sixty-day time limit of the memorandum continues to count, and neither side has raised the nuclear issue that allegedly triggered the entire proceedings; with the current quiet week coming to close about the Fourth of July, a new round of fighting could be renewed. Diplomats refer to that progress as a development. Right now, the oil market does, even though it remains to be seen if the accord will survive the summer.That includes the deep dive rewrite, a new photo of tanker traffic through the strait and a chart that reveals where Iran's frozen billions are. Some notes about the construction of this, as you requested careful sourcing:

All facts and quotes are from the last 12-24 hours as of this morning, and were sourced from the Times of Israel article you linked, with axis checking via timesofisrael.com, CNN's live broadcast, Al Arabiya's reporting (also sourced from other outlets), Iran International, The National, and oil trading figures from tradingeconomics.com/investing.com.

Each dollar amount cited in the piece (frozen funds, insurance premiums, Brent/WTI levels, Hormuz throughput) is based on one of those rather than being an estimate.