Nick Marlow 
President Trump said Iran will be hit "really hard" if nuclear negotiations collapse again, telling Fox News that military action remains on the table if diplomacy fails.
The warning lands just as Iran, the United States and Oman say they are close to an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil and gas moves out of the Gulf.
Hypothesis: Trump is pairing the Hormuz opening with a public threat to keep leverage over Tehran, signaling a shipping deal will not soften Washington's line on the nuclear file. Supporting this: he raised the prospect of a heavy strike unprompted, in the same period the parties are described as near an agreement, rather than after any breakdown. Against this: Fox News did not report him tying the warning to the Hormuz negotiations specifically, so it may simply be a standing message on Iran's nuclear program that he repeats regardless of the shipping talks.
Any return to confrontation over the strait would raise costs for Europe, which has leaned more heavily on Gulf oil and gas since cutting back on Russian energy. Fuel prices there would move even though the waters lie thousands of kilometers from the continent.
What to watch: whether Washington and Tehran close the Hormuz agreement before the next flashpoint in the nuclear file. Trump gave no threshold for when he would judge the talks to have collapsed.
