On April 12, 2026, Iranian President Masoud Pezehiziyan signaled a willingness to reach an agreement on "ensuring regional peace" during a phone call with Russian President Putin, mentioning hopes for a "balanced and fair agreement." On the same day, former U.S. President Trump publicly declared his intention to stop Iran from profiting from oil, summarizing his expectations for the Iran negotiation results with "I want it all," creating a stark contrast in rhetoric. In the context of the market's prior "anticipation of geopolitical risks," forecasts indicate a high probability of WTI crude oil surpassing $115 per barrel this month at 57% (single source), with high oil price speculation intertwining with geopolitical tension narratives. The question is: to what extent can Iran's signals of mitigation alter the trajectory of U.S.-Iranian gaming and the pricing path of oil prices and broader risk assets?
A Phone Call: From "I Want Peace" to "I Want It All"
In the April 12 call with Putin, Pezehiziyan emphasized "regional peace" and a "balanced and fair agreement." This statement has been confirmed by multiple sources, including the Iranian Tasnim News Agency and Xinhua, solidifying its core wording. The context reveals that amid long-standing sanctions, regional conflicts, and domestic economic pressures, Iran has rarely signaled a willingness to negotiate actively, highlighting "fairness" as an external signal to reshape its image in a potential agreement—not as a passive surrender but seeking a "dignified cooling down."
In stark contrast, Trump's tough language on the same day was notable. On one hand, he described his expectations for a negotiation result with "I want it all," while on the other hand, he explicitly stated he would "prevent Iran from profiting from oil." This directly targets Iran's Achilles' heel: crude oil exports. In terms of rhetoric, one side emphasizes balance and peace, while the other stresses maximum pressure and "everything," highlighting a fundamental divergence in the structural nature of the agreement—whether to allow Iran "limited profit" in exchange for restraint, or to force concessions by entirely constraining its oil revenue.
The motives behind Iran's signals of negotiation willingness at this time are not difficult to deduce. Years of sanctions combined with a new round of geopolitical tension have squeezed its foreign exchange income and fiscal space; an unstable regional security landscape has increased the risks of misjudgments and conflict escalation; domestically, there is ongoing economic and social pressure necessitating some degree of external alleviation to gain a respite. The phrase "balanced and fair" essentially seeks to find a compromise that can be explained domestically between lifting sanctions, minimal oil export space, and security guarantees.
However, from the current U.S. rhetoric, this negotiation starts from a point of significant imbalance. Iran has made verbal concessions, emphasizing balance, while Trump raises the stakes, setting "preventing oil profit" as a political slogan, leaving little room for the other side publicly. The U.S. has not simultaneously released any clear signals of mitigation; the negotiation table has yet to be fully set, yet expectations have already been locked into a high-pressure zone that is difficult to reverse.
Oil Price Betting Heats Up: The Narrative Behind the 57% Probability
One key signal currently given by the prediction market is that the probability of WTI crude oil exceeding $115 per barrel this month is about 57%. In numerical terms, this indicates that traders believe the likelihood of "breaking above $115" is slightly higher than a coin toss—it's not an inevitable event, but far from a marginal scenario. However, it is worth emphasizing that this data comes from a single source, lacking cross-verification across multiple platforms and markets, thus its representativeness and robustness are limited, resembling more an emotional and risk preference window rather than an accurate probability measure.
Even so, the judgment that "the market has reacted early to geopolitical risks" still has a clear logical underpinning: the intensification of geopolitical conflict and expectations of escalating sanctions have pushed the imagination of disrupted supply into current prices, with some likely future risks already factored in. Such anticipatory positioning amplifies oil price upward momentum—even before substantive supply disturbances have materialized, prices will increase ahead of narrative-driven contexts.
Within this framework, Iran's negotiation statements exhibit a typical bidirectional tug on crude oil supply expectations. On one hand, if the market believes a path to reconciliation is realistic, concerns over extreme sanctions or military escalation leading to a sharp decline in exports will ease, thus compressing "supply disruption premiums" in the medium term. On the other hand, Trump's tough rhetoric serves as a reminder to investors: if no agreement is reached, the next step is likely to be further sanctions, with more restrictions on export channels. This binary narrative of "either de-escalation or more severe measures" renders Iran's peace overtures temporarily unable to counter the upward push of hardline expectations on prices.
For broader risk assets, high oil price expectations are often associated with rising inflation pressures and increasing demand for safe-haven assets. If $115 becomes a reality or is even exceeded, market concerns about renewed inflation and tighter monetary policy will intensify, potentially putting pressure on the valuations of traditional risk assets. At the same time, heightened risk aversion tends to bolster demand for certain commodities and "risk-averse assets," which macro-level liquidity expectations and changes in risk preferences may have a ripple effect on cryptocurrency assets, though, in the absence of concrete data, it is hard to break them down to specific cryptocurrencies or price performances.
Game Focus of the Agreement: Oil Exports as the Only Hard Leverage
From the potential agreement structure, the core conflicts of interest between Iran and the U.S. can almost all be reduced to one fulcrum: limitations on oil exports. For Iran, crude oil exports are both a fiscal lifeline and a practical support for foreign policy; for the U.S. and its allies, limiting Iran's oil revenue is seen as a key tool for curtailing its regional influence and military capabilities. The game played around this issue will determine whether any agreement represents a "tactical easing" or "structural loosening."
On an operational level, future divergences in negotiations can roughly be understood from three dimensions without fabricating details: first, export quotas—whether Iran's daily production and export volumes will be locked within specific ranges, and for how long; second, settlement currency—whether transactions must be conducted through specific currencies or controlled channels to maintain pressure on the financial system; third, regulatory oversight of fund flows—whether income flowing into Iran will require transparency or restrictions regarding its use. The answers to these questions will determine how much Iran "profits and what it can do."
In this context, Pezehiziyan's description of a "balanced and fair" agreement likely implies several bottom lines for Iran regarding oil exports: it cannot accept pressures that approach "zero exports," needs predictable space regarding quantity and duration; wishes to retain a degree of autonomy in the settlement method, rather than being entirely subjected to a financial framework designed by opponents; and also is unwilling to be subjected to excessive external scrutiny regarding the use of funds. This sets both a baseline and a red line in negotiations.
Trump's political commitment to "prevent Iran from profiting from oil" directly compresses all technical compromise space. In the public context, he has locked himself into a position that is very difficult to backtrack from—once negotiations begin, easing export restrictions will easily be criticized by domestic political opponents as "showing weakness to Iran." This makes any adjustments regarding quotas, settlement, or oversight highly likely to be perceived by the public as "giving money to Iran," thereby continuously squeezing bureaucratic and technical designs behind the political slogans.
Silence from Moscow: Russia's Position at the Table
It is noteworthy that the public sources of Iran's statements mainly come from the Iranian Tasnim News Agency and Xinhua, which have confirmed core phrases like "a balanced and fair agreement" and "ensuring regional peace." However, on the same timeline, detailed and nuanced responses from the Kremlin remain absent; the Russian side has only maintained regular disclosures regarding the fact of the "phone call," without providing more information about the agreement details or its own stance. This asymmetric information disclosure makes it difficult for the outside world to interpret Russia's role without relying on speculation.
From a structural perspective, Russia finds itself in a delicate position between oil prices, sanctions, and the Middle Eastern situation. High oil prices directly enhance export income for Russia, an energy exporter, helping to buffer against its own sanctions pressures; meanwhile, if the Middle Eastern situation remains tense and Iranian exports are restricted, any "gaps" in the global crude supply structure will be filled by other oil-producing countries, including Russia. Simultaneously, Russia needs to avoid a complete loss of control over regional conflicts to prevent triggering more extreme sanctions and security spillovers, which may generate potential contradictions with its stability demands as a major power.
In this context, the call between Putin and Pezehiziyan serves as a signal: on the one hand, Russia clearly has the motive to navigate between Iran and the West, strengthening its geopolitical role through "communication channels"; on the other hand, it may also leverage Iran's predicament to gain greater bargaining power in energy cooperation, military trade, or regional coordination. However, in the absence of a detailed disclosure from the Kremlin about the call's content and stance, any judgment regarding "what Russia is mediating or planning to gain" can only remain at the structural deduction level, without drawing conclusive evaluations.
In other words, Moscow's silence itself is a strategy: both allowing Iran to signal its "willingness to negotiate" through the media, creating a soothing atmosphere, and preserving enough maneuvering space for itself to reconfigure strategies based on subsequent U.S. reactions and oil price trajectories. For market participants, during a phase when Russia's role remains highly ambiguous, over-interpreting its "alignment" and "transaction conditions" carries obvious risks.
The Market Fires First: Emotional Bets Outpace Diplomatic Realities
The current state of "the market has reacted early to geopolitical risks" essentially reflects one fact: emotions are more inclined to bet on conflict escalation rather than on negotiation success. Numbers like "57% probability of WTI breaking $115" within the prediction market, compounded by upward expectations for oil prices, represent more of a discount on extreme scenarios such as escalation of sanctions, misjudged conflicts, or even supply interruptions, rather than an optimistic bet on the realization of a peace agreement. The signals of easing released by Iran appear relatively weak within this emotional structure.
Specific to the trading side, the prediction market and oil price expectations have formed a self-reinforcing narrative loop: Trump's tough tone, and statements like "I want it all" and "preventing Iran from profiting," have been repeatedly cited and amplified, becoming the focus of risk asset pricing; by contrast, Iran's articulation of a "balanced and fair agreement" lacks specific terms and timelines, making it difficult to translate into quantifiable, tradable positive signals in the market, thereby leading to its marginalization. This narrative bias makes it easier for prices to tilt toward "expectations of conflict."
The typical path by which geopolitical news enters the market often sees headlines lead, expectations advance, and subsequent facts continuously correct. Traders first react with risk premiums to keywords like "war," "sanctions," and "preventing profits," and only after additional information emerges do they gradually adjust their positions. At the current stage, the proportions of "war premium" and "sanction premium" in the narrative are evidently high, while the reconciliation rhetoric from Iran has difficulty offsetting this premium due to a lack of corresponding specific actions and U.S. responses.
This indicates that if subsequent diplomatic news diverges directionally from the current mainstream panic narrative—such as actual contacts, ceasefire arrangements, or expressions of loosening sanction boundaries—prices could undergo a dramatic repricing process. For funds heavily bet on high oil price expectations, this "reversal from extreme expectations to a neutral scenario" might become the biggest source of risk.
From Discourse to Price: Asymmetry and Uncertainty in the U.S.-Iran Chess Game
In conclusion, there exists a clear dislocation between the hedging discourse of the U.S. and Iran, the active negotiation signals released by Iran, and the market's active betting on high oil prices: Iran emphasizes "balance and fairness" during the call, signaling a degree of "weakness" and mitigation, yet the mainstream U.S. political voices remain steadfast on the tough line of "preventing Iran from profiting from oil"; meanwhile, the market almost ignores this moderate statement, placing more bets on the continued escalation of geopolitical risks and sharp oil prices. The narrative logic hints at possible negotiations, while the price logic leans towards conflict escalation.
At this stage, the terms of the agreement themselves—especially the specific designs surrounding oil export limitations—as well as Russia's true position at the table, remain highly opaque. The Kremlin's silence regarding the details of the call makes it hard for the outside world to determine whether it is a proactive mediator or an opportunistic bystander, while a public consensus on balancing "maximum pressure" and "limited easing" has not been formed within the U.S. Given these conditions, any premature, linear narratives (such as "Iran showing weakness will inevitably lead to a drop in oil prices" or "Trump's toughness will push oil prices to new highs") carry significant risks.
For investors, a more pragmatic framework is to focus on one question: whether subsequent negotiations will truly address the core issue of oil exports, rather than merely staying at the level of slogan strength and individual statements. Once specific discussions about export quotas, settlement methods, or fund oversight occur, it will indicate that the U.S.-Iran game has entered the "terms negotiation" stage away from the "discourse war"; until then, prices are primarily reacting to narrative fluctuations.
Looking ahead to the coming weeks, possible paths can be simplified into three scenarios: first, calming expectations take precedence, negotiations enter a substantive phase under the mediation of Russia and others, and oil exports are limitedly relaxed within some framework, causing extreme war premiums in oil prices to be partially retraced; second, sanctions escalate, the U.S. further tightens around oil revenues, Iran's export space is further compressed, and oil prices continue to rise under supply concerns and risk sentiment; third, a prolonged stalemate occurs, with frequent discourse clashes but without substantial breakthroughs or escalations, causing oil prices to oscillate widely at high levels, with risk premiums stuck in a "sticky" state where they do not rise or fall. Which path becomes a reality will depend on the negotiations over terms rather than a singular hardline or conciliatory statement.
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