U.S. Is Negotiating an Iran Deal That Would Buy Time, Again
(…) the United States proposed a 20-year “suspension” of all nuclear activity. That would allow the Iranians to claim they had not permanently given up their right, under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to produce their own nuclear fuel.
In response, Iran renewed a proposal that it suspend nuclear activity for up to five years, according to two senior Iranian officials and one U.S. official. The Iranians had made a very similar proposal in February during a failed set of negotiations in Geneva that convinced President Trump it was time to go to war. Days later, he ordered the attack on Iran. (…)
So the revelation that the two sides are now arguing over the time period for suspending nuclear activity suggests that there may well be room for a deal, and there were indications on Monday that negotiators may meet again in the coming days. White House officials said no meetings had been finalized, but another round of in-person negotiations was being discussed.
But for Mr. Trump and his aides there is also the risk that any agreement that emerges may resemble the 2015 nuclear accord, which the president exited three years later and called a “horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”
At the core of Mr. Trump’s complaint about the Obama accord, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was that it contained “sunsets.” And it did: The Iranians were allowed gradually more enrichment activity until 2030, when all restrictions would evaporate. (Iran’s commitments under the nonproliferation treaty would still ban it from building a bomb.)
But the Obama deal did not involve a full suspension of nuclear activity, which would buy at least a few years of zero nuclear activity — past Mr. Trump’s term in office.
“If they could get Iran to suspend for even a few years, that is superior to what we got in the J.C.P.O.A.,” said Rob Malley, who was on the negotiating team in 2015 for the Obama administration and then led an ultimately fruitless effort during President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration to restore some kind of agreement.
In fact, the history of America’s interactions with Iran is littered with efforts to buy more time. Sometimes that has come by sabotaging the program, as the United States and Israel did by using cyberweapons to make nuclear centrifuges self-destruct. Sometimes it involved sanctions, and at other times diplomatic agreements. (…)
Like the Obama administration, the Trump White House is trying to preserve the secrecy of the negotiating room, so that it has maximum room to cut a deal. And like the Obama administration, it is discovering that both sides engage in strategic leaking. (…)
Mr. Vance said Iran showed some flexibility but “didn’t move far enough.” (…)
Another sticking point centers on the U.S. demand that Iran remove 970 pounds of near-bomb-grade uranium from the country, to ensure it could never be diverted to a bomb project. (…)
The Iranians have insisted the fuel must stay inside Iran. But they have offered, as they did in Geneva, to dilute it significantly so that it could not be used to produce a nuclear weapon.
That, too, would extend the timeline to a bomb. The risk, of course, is that the Iranians would still have possession of the fuel and in the future might be able to re-enrich it to its current state of about 60 percent purity, just below the 90 percent needed to make a weapon. (…)
Axios:
- “There is continued engagement between the U.S. and Iran and forward motion on trying to get to an agreement,” a U.S. official said.
- Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday afternoon that the White House has “been called this morning by the right people in Iran… and they want to make a deal.”
- While no agreement has been reached, the Iranians thought they were close to an initial agreement by Sunday morning and were caught off guard by Vice President Vance’s press conference. The VP gave no indication a deal was close, blamed the Iranians, and announced the U.S. delegation was leaving Islamabad.
- “The Iranians were pissed off about that press conference,” a source with knowledge said.
- [Turkish Foreign Minister Haqan] Fidan told Anadolu news agency that “initial positions are always somewhat maximalist. Later, the parties try to find common ground with the support of mediators. As long as they have the intention to reach, maintain, and permanently achieve a ceasefire. What I see is that both sides are sincere about the ceasefire.”
- Fidan said he thinks the Iranians will evaluate the U.S. proposal and give their response in the coming days. He said an extension of 45-60 days of ceasefire could be considered to allow negotiations to continue.
“They want to make a deal”.
- March 13: “Iran wants to make a deal, and I don’t want to make it because the terms aren’t good enough yet.”
- March 14: Trump posts that Iran “is totally defeated and wants a deal, but not a deal that I would accept.”
- March 22: In coverage of his decision to delay strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure, Trump is quoted saying Iran “wants a deal” or “wants to make a deal badly.”
- March 23: Trump announced a 5-day pause on planned strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure, claiming Tehran had initiated contact to “seek a deal”.
- March 24: Associated Press reports that Trump said U.S. envoys had been talking to a “respected” Iranian leader and that Iran wants “to make a deal.”
- March 25: A social post quoting Trump says he is confident Iran “wants to make a deal” because they’ve been “beat to s–t.”
- March 28: He signaled that negotiations were underway, asserting that Iran was “being decimated” and was actively seeking an agreement.
- April 1: Trump claimed that Iran’s president “wants a ceasefire,”
- April 13: Trump told reporters at the White House that “the other side” had called him that morning and “would like to make a deal very badly”.
Iranian officials, including Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, have repeatedly denied that such direct negotiations or calls have taken place.
Saudi Arabia Is Pressing U.S. to Drop Its Hormuz Blockade
Saudi Arabia is pressing the U.S. to drop its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and return to the negotiating table, fearing President Trump’s move to close it off could lead Iran to escalate and disrupt other important shipping routes, Arab officials said.
The blockade is aimed at raising the pressure on Iran’s already crippled economy. But the officials said Saudi Arabia has warned Iran might retaliate by closing the Bab al-Mandeb—a Red Sea chokepoint crucial for the kingdom’s remaining oil exports. (…)
Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen control a long stretch of coastline near the Bab al-Mandeb and severely disrupted the waterway for much of the war in the Gaza Strip. Iran is putting pressure on the group to close the chokepoint again, Arab officials said. (…)
Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian paramilitary group that now controls the Strait of Hormuz, said a blockade could lead the country to close the Red Sea gateway. (…)
Yemen’s Iranian-allied Houthi rebels have proved their ability to severely disrupt shipping through the gateway with attacks on vessels in the waterway. While those missile, drone and small-arms attacks tailed off after the October cease-fire in Gaza, traffic still isn’t fully back to normal.
The Houthis have largely stayed out of the current conflict between the U.S. and Iran after being pounded during a 53-day American campaign that ended in a cease-fire a year ago. But they remain an important part of Iran’s wider network of militia groups in the region and a deterrent held in reserve in case Iran needs to raise the pressure on the U.S.
The Houthis have said that closing Bab al-Mandeb is also one of their options. (…)
Ali Akbar Velayati, a foreign-policy adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said April 5 on social media that Iran looks at Bab al-Mandeb “just as it looks at Hormuz. And if the White House thinks of repeating its stupid mistakes, it will quickly realize that the flow of global energy and trade can be disrupted with a single signal.”
Saudi energy officials told The Wall Street Journal the kingdom had secured commitments from the Houthis that the group wouldn’t attack the kingdom or its ships passing through Bab al-Mandeb.
But the kingdom has told the U.S. the situation remains fluid, and the Houthis could enter the conflict more aggressively if pushed further by Iran, Arab officials said. Houthis could also start imposing fees on ships to transit, they said. (…)
Xi Says World Order ‘Crumbling Into Disarray’ as War Takes Toll
Chinese President Xi Jinping lamented a world in “disarray,” using some of his strongest language yet to describe a collapse of the Western-led international order as he vowed to play a constructive role in the Middle East.
“The international order is crumbling into disarray,” Xi told Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Tuesday in Beijing, using a Chinese phrase indicating not only chaos but also moral decay.
The comments, part of Xi’s first public statements on the Iran war since the conflict began more than a month ago, followed a flurry of visits by world leaders to Beijing and fresh economic data on Tuesday showing the war took a sharp toll on Chinese exports in March. Xi has framed his country as a stabilizing force in a world thrown into turmoil by Donald Trump’s erratic approach to trade and foreign policy. (…)
China has criticized the military action against Iran and warned it risks plunging the Middle East into deeper instability. Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged the international community to step up efforts to promote peace talks between Iran and the US, warning that the current truce remains fragile and must be preserved. (…)
China’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday called the blockade “dangerous and irresponsible” and vowed to take countermeasures if the US raises tariffs on Chinese exports over the Iran conflict. (…)
Ahead of the meeting, Sánchez urged China to leverage its global influence to help bring the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine to an end.
“Both China and Spain are nations of principle and integrity,” Xi said, adding that the two sides should “enhance communication, consolidate mutual trust, and cooperate closely to resist any regression toward the law of the jungle.” (…)
In his [earlier] meeting with Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Xi put forward a four-point proposal for maintaining peace in the Middle East, including upholding the principles of peaceful coexistence, sovereignty, rule of international law and the pursuit of development and security, according to the readout. (…)
- “We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world,” Trump said, warning Iran against charging fees for vessels to transit the strait.
Trends driving real-time inflation in April 2026
The US inflation today, April 13, is 1.84%, up from 1.26% at the beginning of the month.
Multiple categories experienced a re-acceleration in inflation:
- Gasoline and fuel costs
- Clothing
- Recreation (event tickets, subscriptions, and services)
- Household goods
- Other lodgings (short stays)
- Education
- and Communication
The main groups that have been showing disinflationary trends (lowering inflation) in the past weeks:
- Natural Gas
- Vehicle purchases
- Food
Microsoft Corp. raised prices sharply across its Surface-branded device lineup, becoming the latest personal computer maker to pass along costs fueled by a historic memory chip shortage.
The 12-inch Surface Pro, touted as an affordable, lightweight computer-tablet hybrid when it debuted last year for $800, now starts at $1,050. Older products have also undergone hikes: At $1,500, the 13-inch Surface Pro 11th Edition is several hundred dollars more expensive than its $1,000 launch price in 2024. The latest-generation 13.8-inch Surface Laptop has gone up by as much as $500. (…)
An industrywide memory chip crunch — fueled in part by the AI computing build-out — has led PC manufacturers such as Dell Technologies Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd. and HP Inc. to raise the cost of their machines and limit how extensively they can be configured. (…)
At Apple Inc., the latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro also cost more than past models. But the company bumped up the included storage to help offset a higher cost of entry. (…)
The Stanford economists modeled the hit the average U.S. household will face if the most recent Goldman Sachs crude oil forecast — which assumes a three-week closure of the Strait of Hormuz with prices mostly retreating to pre-war levels by June — comes true.
- They find that in this scenario, retail gasoline prices peak at $4.36 a gallon in May before declining slowly. That would mean the average household spending $740 more in gas costs this year compared with pre-war forecasts.
- That is similar to the $748 in additional refund money that the Tax Foundation projects the average household will receive due to the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.
- Other estimates of the extra refund cash flowing into Americans’ bank accounts this tax season are smaller. In IRS data so far this filing season, the average refund is up only $360. (…)
- Higher energy prices also raise airfares and shipping prices, which exerts upward pressure on the prices of virtually all goods.
Tech Valuations Back to Pre-AI Boom Levels
The chart below compares the forward P/E ratios for the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 Information Technology sector.
Tech valuations have compressed from 40x to 20x, and we are back at levels last seen before the AI boom began.
Goldman Sachs:
Despite the recent market rebound, the share prices of secular growth stocks remain more than 20% below their October highs.
We define secular growth stocks as S&P 500 firms, excluding Financials, Real Estate, and Utilities, that meet our “Rule of 10” sales growth criteria: Companies that grew sales by at least 10% during each of the prior two years and where consensus estimates indicate sales growth of at least 10% in the current year and each of the next two years.
This evolving screen of secular growth stocks has underperformed the equal-weight S&P 500 by 27 pp during the past six months, one of the worst stretches of underperformance during the past 15 years.
The recent weakness in secular growth stocks has reflected a sharp contraction in valuation multiples. Since the peak in broad US equity market valuation multiples in October 2025, valuations for companies with high expected sales growth have de-rated sharply.
The forward P/E for median Rule of 10 secular growth stock has declined from 36x in October 2025 to 27x, which ranks in just the 35th percentile since 2010.
(…) uncertainty regarding AI disruption risk has been a key contributor the recent underperformance and is likely to remain a persistent headwind, arguing for a selective investment approach within the universe of secular growth stocks.
Software has been at the epicenter of the AI disruption debate and currently represents roughly 30% of the “secular growth” companies in our screen. The share of Rule of 10 stocks from Software has grown steadily during the last few years, while the share from Biotech has diminished from roughly 20% in 2017 to 0% today. In total, a record number of stocks currently meet our Rule of 10 sales growth criteria.
The underperformance of secular growth stocks began in late 2025, as expectations for strong economic growth in 2026 led investors to rotate out of secular growth stocks towards cyclical stocks with more exposure to the economy.
Today, however, the diminished outlook for economic growth against a backdrop of elevated oil prices and uncertainty should drive increased focused on companies with strong idiosyncratic growth profiles.
We expect investor uncertainty around AI disruption and long-term growth estimates will persist for quarters if not years, requiring investors to be selective within the universe of secular growth stocks. For secular growth stocks facing AI disruption risk, resolving this uncertainty will likely require evidence that AI is not displacing existing business models. Even after removing Software, many AI-exposed companies populate the screen, including both companies at the center of recent AI disruption risk discussions and beneficiaries of AI investment spending.
Even excluding Software, secular growth stocks have recently underperformed and trade at discounted valuation multiples versus the past decade. The secular growth de-rating has been most pronounced within Software. However, the median non-Software stock in our Rule of 10 secular growth screen trades 15% below its November highs and carries a forward P/E of 29x, slightly below its historical average of 30x and close to the bottom of its range during the past decade. Relative to the median S&P 500 stock, the group commands a 53% premium, which is also close to the lowest level in a decade.
The median stock meeting our Rule of 10 criteria, excluding Software, trades at a PEG ratio of 1.8x. This measure is also close to the bottom of the range of the past decade, albeit above typical levels in the prior decade. We define the PEG ratio as the forward P/E relative to consensus 3-year ahead sales growth.
FYI:
Profit Margins — Tech vs Non-tech: (…) this next chart is only looking at listed companies and it shows non-tech respectable but basically static. It’s tech that is doing all the heavy lifting on margin expansion (and you might even argue that the uptrend in the black line over the longer-run was helped along by tech-driven productivity gains). (Callum Thomas)
- S&P 500 Tech Stocks $XLK are seeing their largest insider buys in 15 years. (@Barchart)
April 8, 2026 – American insider sentiment remained steady last week, with the INK US sentiment indicator holding steady at 33%. At 33%, there is one stock with key insider buying for every three stocks with key insider selling.
- INK’s US Tech Indicator has not really changed:
In Gut We Trust?
By Peggy Noonan.
(…) We’re in a fluid, dangerous story that isn’t going away any time soon. But I want to speak of something that made it worse, those social-media posts in the middle of the night. (…)
You know them well. On Tuesday, Donald Trump on Truth Social: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen but it probably will.” On Good Friday, “Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!” On Easter Sunday, “Open the f— Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH.” He ended that post “Praise be to Allah.”
The posts left his friends and foes slackjawed. I want to talk about why they were so horrifying. (…)
The posts weren’t showbiz, they were sinister. You destabilize the world when, as the American president, you say such things. (…)
You rob your own nation of a claim to moral seriousness in the military action in which it’s engaged: You are saying we’re not trying to protect life but plan to attack, and in the attacking kill noncombatants who are members of the targeted civilization. The moral high ground is relinquished. You lower the bar for all potential response. You encourage violent action by trumpeting your readiness for it.
It bolsters the position of your enemies—their animus is justified, their commitment deepened. It allows them to pretend they’re fighting for the continuation of their people and not only the continuation of their regime. (…)
Donald Trump plays the part of the madman every day. His head fake would be sanity. (…)
Why do we recoil when a leader is vulgar and violent in his language and thinking? Coarse language obviously implies coarse thinking, and no one wants that in a leader entrusted to bring peace and prosperity. Beyond that, throughout history political authority has come wrapped in a certain formality and ceremony. Dignity enhanced power. A British king even 500 years ago didn’t think himself free to speak in public like a fishmonger or a street whore. He had to present himself at a certain height so people would look up to him.
As for threats, when you resort to them, you’re revealing you are uncertain of the sufficiency of your power. Real menace shuts its mouth. (…)
I think Mr. Trump shocked his followers. What he used this week was not the diction of the common man but the language of sociopathy. That isn’t how his supporters want the world to see him. It’s not what they want him to be. (…)
He operates as if he honestly believes we don’t need allies, as if the concept is antique. He’s threatening again to leave the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But having and holding allies is simple prudence. They steady your position in moments of danger—they help you make the case, and share the intelligence burden—and broaden your influence in peace. More than that, allies add legitimacy and moral authority. You’re acting with others, not only for yourself, and you’re going forward with shared values that imply historical meaning, which has its own force. Having allies means that when something bad happens you don’t stand alone.
It is not sentimental to care about this, it is babyish to think it means nothing. (…)
Mr. Trump’s trust in his gut seems to have grown overwhelming—not in his reasoning power, not his analysis of intelligence data, but gut. (…)
Sometimes gut is mere emotion dressed up as instinct. Sometimes it’s wishful thinking that feels like conviction. Sometimes it conveniently pre-empts hard reasoning. You can trust your gut straight into catastrophe.
Also gut never does a full audit—you need your brain for that, for reflection and self-examination on how or where you went wrong, to help you next time.
And gut doesn’t necessarily travel. A good gut in one domain can be a bad one in another. You can confuse domains.