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Starmer Brexits

Explore episode Jun 24, 2026
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Why Iran Has No Incentive to Make Nuclear Concessions

Starmer Brexits · Jun 24, 2026 News

After the Suez Crisis, Egypt kept the canal and tolled it forever. Iran has already demonstrated it can extract revenue from the Strait of Hormuz. They can get the $10 billion, maybe the $24 billion, set up a toll, and never make a nuclear concession — and Trump is too scared of midterms to go back to war.

Where this was said

The Switzerland Talks: JD Vance, Competing Claims & the Toll Question

At 22:00 · chapter starts 18:35

The Switzerland talks opened on rocky ground when the IRGC announced it was re-closing the Strait in protest of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah — Trump responded on Fox News by threatening to destroy Iran and kill everyone on the delegation before they could get home. Despite this warm-up, the talks proceeded, led on the US side by JD Vance, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner. The two sides announced a high-level political committee, a working group of qualified experts, a 60-day roadmap, communications protocols for the Strait, and a Lebanon deconfliction cell. But major contradictions immediately emerged: Vance claimed Iran agreed to IAEA inspector re-entry, while Iran said no inspectors would return to bombed sites. Vance said frozen assets would only buy American crops; the MOU's actual text says Iran can spend the money on anything. Trump said the Strait is at record traffic volumes; in reality, only a few dozen ships per day are transiting, and Iran has already set up an insurance company to eventually toll the passage. The hosts play JD Vance's press avail — a combination of housing metaphors, millennial trash-talk definitions, and subtle insults to Iran — and express deep skepticism a real nuclear deal gets done.

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