With Vice President JD Vance in Switzerland seeking a peace deal with Iran, President Donald Trump warned the Iranian delegation against keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed, prompting Iranian negotiators to walk out in protest and drawing harsh criticism that
JD Vance arrived in Switzerland hoping to move the nuclear and regional standoff with Iran toward a deal, but the atmosphere around the talks turned quickly—at least according to one former top diplomat who watched the situation unfold in real time.
After initial meetings on Sunday. Vance told the media that progress had been made toward a future relationship with Iran. saying. “We are looking to transform. fundamentally. the relationship with Iran.” The message was meant to be forward-looking. and it landed that way with many inside Washington. Former diplomat Richard Stengel. an MS NOW analyst who served as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs under President Barack Obama. praised the tone before turning sharply to what came next.
Stengel agreed with host Ayman Mohyeldin, who had spotlighted Vance’s “hopeful and optimistic” remarks. Then Stengel said Trump undercut the moment in a way he called both unprecedented in modern terms and childish in delivery.
“I thought it was powerful and it was hopeful,” Stengel said. “And then Trump, you know, in the most puerile, adolescent way, you know, threatens the talks.”
The dispute centers on remarks Trump made to an Iranian delegation during the same period Vance was meeting with Iranian diplomats. On Fox News, Trump warned that Iran should not keep the Strait of Hormuz closed.
“You close it, and you won’t have a country,” Trump said. “You won’t even make it back to your fucking country.”
For Stengel, the real issue wasn’t just policy. It was the line Trump crossed during active diplomacy—one he described as a taboo that stretches back thousands of years.
“Negotiators walked out in protest,” he said, and argued that they had every reason to. “If there is one taboo in the history of diplomacy going back to the Peloponnesian War, is you do not threaten envoys, no matter how opposed you are,” Stengel said. “And there he is, threatening envoys.”
Stengel added that the president’s comments didn’t only violate diplomatic custom. He said they also breached the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding Trump signed just days earlier—an agreement, he argued, that was meant to restrain exactly the kind of escalation he described.
“The number one plank in the Memorandum of Understanding says both parties must refrain from threats of force,” Stengel said. “He’s already violated that a dozen times.”
The result. Stengel said. was predictable: when talks were underway. threats aimed at envoys turned negotiation into something else—an exercise in mutual risk rather than mutual restraint. He pointed to the walkout as the clearest signal of how quickly trust can collapse when words are used as leverage instead of as openings.
In the video that followed. the conversation returned to the core tension driving the moment: Vance’s insistence on transformation and progress. set against Trump’s warning about Iran’s options and the consequences of closure at one of the world’s most strategic chokepoints—an exchange that left negotiators protesting and casting doubt on where the diplomacy could go next.
United States politics JD Vance Donald Trump Iran talks Switzerland Strait of Hormuz diplomacy Memorandum of Understanding Richard Stengel