Latest / The President's Daily Brief / PDB Afternoon Bulletin | September 22nd, 2026: Tehran Offers To Reopen Hormuz & North Korea’s New Weapon

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PDB Afternoon Bulletin | September 22nd, 2026: Tehran Offers To Reopen Hormuz & North Korea’s New Weapon · The President's Daily Brief

0:12
It's Tuesday,
0:13
the 22nd of September.
0:14
Welcome to the PDB
0:16
afternoon bulletin.
0:17
I'm Mike Baker,
0:18
your eyes and ears on the world stage.
0:20
All right,
0:21
let's get briefed.
0:23
First up,
0:23
a possible diplomatic development in the Iran war.
0:27
Tehran is supposedly offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
0:31
Hm,
0:32
haven't heard that one before.
0:34
Oh wait,
0:34
yes,
0:34
yes,
0:35
we have.
0:35
But hope springs eternal amongst diplomatic folks.
0:38
I'll have the details.
0:40
Later in the show,
0:41
North Korea says its latest missile test involved a new hypersonic weapon
0:45
as Kim Jong Un shows off another system
0:48
designed to challenge US and allied missile defenses.
0:51
At least Kim is consistent.
0:53
Whenever he feels like he's
0:54
not getting enough attention on the world stage,
0:57
out comes another missile.
0:59
But first,
0:59
today's afternoon spotlight.
1:02
After
1:02
over half a year of fighting,
1:04
a US blockade,
1:05
and an almost complete collapse in commercial
1:07
traffic through the Strait of Hormuz,
1:09
Tehran is now reportedly or supposedly offering to reopen the waterway
1:14
and says it could do it within 7 days.
1:17
According to Reuters,
1:18
a senior Iranian official says Tehran is prepared to reopen Homuz
1:23
if the US eases military pressure and lifts its blockade on Iranian ports.
1:29
The official also says that Iran's delegation in
1:31
New York City for the United Nations General Assembly
1:34
has been given full authority
1:35
to revive diplomacy with Washington.
1:38
Iran says it already delivered a proposal to the US
1:41
through mediators on the 16th of September.
1:44
You know,
1:45
it's worth pointing out that it's not clear
1:46
just yet who within the Iranian regime leadership
1:49
has authorized this supposed deal,
1:52
which is an important point since nobody seems to
1:55
particularly understand who is actually in charge within the regime.
2:00
But the fact that Iran is putting a specific offer on the table,
2:03
supposedly,
2:04
and attaching a seven-day timeline to reopening the Strait of Hormuz
2:08
is notable,
2:09
especially when you
2:10
look at what's been happening in the Strait.
2:13
Commercial traffic has nearly disappeared.
2:15
Reuters reports that just two trackable commodity vessels
2:19
crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.
2:21
Before this war began on the 28th of February,
2:23
roughly 125 large commercial vessels
2:27
were moving through the strait every day carrying oil,
2:30
liquefied natural gas,
2:31
and other cargo.
2:32
The waterway normally accounts for roughly 1/5 of
2:35
the world's daily crude oil and LNG supply.
2:39
And the security situation does remain dangerous.
2:42
Over the past couple of days,
2:43
2 more vessels were attacked while crossing the waterway in separate incidents.
2:47
One was the crude oil tanker LR Stephanie,
2:50
where 2 crew members reportedly suffered minor injuries.
2:53
The other was an LPG carrier called the Almoya.
2:57
Both ships were able to continue under their own power.
3:00
So when the Iranian regime says it's willing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in 7 days,
3:04
it's talking about restoring traffic through a waterway
3:07
that has effectively been reduced to a trickle.
3:11
The question of course is why Iran
3:13
is making this offer now.
3:14
And the answer is
3:15
both that the regime feels emboldened by
3:18
its ability to negatively impact the strait,
3:20
despite US intervention,
3:22
and at the same time the regime is under pressure economically.
3:26
The regime continues to view their leverage over
3:28
the important waterway as their key strength.
3:30
In addition,
3:31
they've raised the stakes regionally by having their proxy,
3:34
the Houthi rebels,
3:35
go on the offensive in Yemen against the Saudi-backed government forces.
3:39
That's created further instability within the region
3:42
and in global.
3:43
Energy markets
3:44
and that likely has convinced Tehran
3:47
that now is a good time to push for concessions from the US
3:50
in order to gain relief from the economic pressure.
3:53
Tehran is now apparently using the UN gathering in New York
3:56
as an opportunity to see whether the US administration is keen to make a deal.
4:01
The Iranian official who spoke to Reuters called the General Assembly a
4:05
golden opportunity
4:07
to return to diplomacy.
4:09
Iranian President Massoud Pozeshkian is also traveling to New York,
4:13
although Iranian officials say he's not currently
4:15
expected to meet directly with President Trump.
4:18
Now,
4:18
at the same time as someone within the
4:20
regime is supposedly talking about a potential deal,
4:23
Iran's military warned just Sunday
4:25
that any renewed US offensive would trigger retaliation
4:29
without restrictions.
4:30
So,
4:31
the caveat with this
4:33
potential diplomatic breakthrough,
4:34
or however it should be labeled,
4:36
is that there may not be a consensus within the regime over a possible deal.
4:41
Confusion or competing agendas within the leadership ranks
4:44
could still rule the day,
4:46
or has been the case in the past.
4:48
This could simply be another block and delay tactic
4:50
as the regime looks to drag this conflict out to the US midterm elections.
4:55
And there's another wrinkle here,
4:57
because China now appears to see an opportunity.
5:00
Now I'll explain how China and the Iran conflict may intersect
5:03
during the UN General Assembly meetings in New York this week.
5:06
Reuters is reporting this morning that Chinese President
5:08
Xi Jinping is preparing to press President Trump
5:11
on one of Beijing's biggest priorities
5:13
when Xi visits Washington this week,
5:15
and that would be,
5:16
of course,
5:16
Taiwan.
5:18
Specifically,
5:18
Xi is expected to push Trump
5:20
to halt US arms sales to the island.
5:23
China is also reportedly seeking to stop deliveries of weapons that
5:27
Taiwan has already purchased.
5:29
Beijing is expected to invoke the 1982 joint communique
5:33
between the US and China in which Washington said it
5:36
intended gradually to reduce arms sales to Taiwan under certain conditions.
5:41
As a reminder,
5:42
the US does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
5:45
But US legislation requires Washington to provide the island with the means
5:49
to defend itself.
5:51
And China reportedly believes that the current crisis in the Middle East
5:55
may give it some leverage.
5:56
According to Reuters,
5:57
Beijing may offer greater cooperation with Washington on Middle Eastern issues
6:02
as part of the discussions in New York,
6:04
and that's where these two stories intersect.
6:06
The US wants the Strait of Hormuz reopened,
6:09
global energy markets stabilized,
6:11
and the conflict to dissipate
6:12
as much as possible ahead of the midterm elections.
6:16
As their most important trading partner,
6:18
China has influence with Iran,
6:20
and as just mentioned,
6:21
Beijing wants something from Washington on Taiwan.
6:24
It's like an episode of Let's Make a Deal
6:26
without the charm of the old host Monty Hall.
6:29
For Beijing,
6:29
the calculation would be straightforward.
6:31
If China can help Washington solve a major problem in the Middle East,
6:35
can Xi use that leverage
6:37
to extract movement on the issue that China considers
6:40
one of its most important national priorities?
6:43
Whether President Trump has any interest in making
6:44
that kind of trade is another question entirely.
6:48
But as Iranian officials arrive in New York supposedly talking about diplomacy
6:52
and Xi prepares for his meetings in Washington,
6:54
well,
6:55
there's an outside chance for some horse trading
6:58
perhaps.
7:00
All right.
7:01
Next up,
7:01
North Korea says it's tested a new hypersonic weapon
7:04
with Kim Jong Un unveiling another missile system
7:08
designed to complicate US and allied defenses.
7:11
I'll be right back.
7:12
Hey,
7:13
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Welcome back to the PDB
10:11
afternoon bulletin.
10:12
What initially looked like another pair of North Korean ballistic
10:15
missiles splashing into the sea at the start of the week
10:18
may have been Kim Jong Un testing a weapons system that
10:21
his regime has now described as hypersonic.
10:25
On Monday's PDB,
10:26
I discussed how South Korea detected two short-range ballistic
10:29
missiles fired Sunday from the coastal city of Wonsan.
10:32
The launches came roughly 3 hours apart,
10:35
with the first traveling about 280 miles
10:38
and the second approximately 370.
10:41
Japan's military said both landed outside the country's exclusive economic zone.
10:46
At the time though,
10:47
that was about all we knew.
10:49
Now North Korea is giving their version of events.
10:52
State media says the launches involved a new weapons system of great significance.
10:57
Pyongyang
10:58
never explicitly called the weapons hypersonic,
11:01
but the evidence appears in the images that the regime released.
11:05
In KCNA's newly released photos,
11:07
you can see two missiles being fired from mobile launchers.
11:10
A monitoring screen beside Kim
11:12
also identifies the weapon as a Hwasong-11 MA.
11:16
It's a system that North Korea has previously described
11:19
as hypersonic.
11:20
The hypersonic weapons are designed to travel at
11:22
more than 5 times the speed of sound,
11:25
and importantly,
11:26
they can also maneuver during flight,
11:28
making their paths much harder to predict
11:30
and giving the defenses protecting South Korea,
11:33
Japan,
11:33
and US forces.
11:34
Much less time to track and intercept them.
11:38
Kim said that this development would strengthen North Korea's war readiness
11:41
and give its enemies what he called a quote incurable headache.
11:45
Still,
11:46
there is an important caveat here.
11:48
North Korea may be touting a major technological advance,
11:51
but the real question is whether this weapon can
11:54
actually perform the way that Pyongyang says it can.
11:57
North Korea's newly released monitoring screen displayed a
12:00
range of nearly 565 miles,
12:03
an altitude of about 22 miles,
12:05
and a speed of approximately 1.3 miles per second.
12:09
However,
12:10
Seoul said that the first missile traveled about 280 miles
12:14
and the second only approximately 370.
12:16
In other words,
12:17
North Korea is claiming a range far greater
12:20
than either distance detected by South Korea.
12:23
Seoul's military is now examining that discrepancy
12:26
while warning that Pyongyang's claims cannot be 100% trusted.
12:30
Thanks for that statement of the obvious.
12:32
That does not mean Sunday's test should be dismissed.
12:35
Even an unproven hypersonic weapon.
12:37
could become a serious threat if North Korea continues refining that technology.
12:42
The apparent test also fits into a much broader buildup there in North Korea.
12:47
The country has spent years developing nuclear capable
12:49
missiles designed to threaten South Korea and Japan,
12:52
overwhelm regional defenses,
12:54
and potentially reach the American mainland.
12:56
And in recent weeks you may recall our coverage here on the PDB
13:00
of Kim Jong Un commissioning the Kangon
13:02
destroyer and staging a combined live fire exercise
13:06
involving missiles and artillery and drones.
13:08
These displays are part of a familiar
13:10
pressure campaign aimed at Seoul and Washington.
13:14
North Korea has a long-standing habit of escalating against the South
13:17
when it fails to get what it wants from the US
13:20
The difference now
13:21
is that Kim is no longer operating with that same level of isolation.
13:25
As we've been tracking here on the PDB,
13:27
Pyongyang has deepened its relationships with both Russia and China.
13:31
Its partnership with Moscow
13:33
has been especially consequential.
13:35
North Korea has supplied Russia with ballistic missiles,
13:38
artillery,
13:38
and troops for its war against Ukraine.
13:41
In return,
13:42
aside from ongoing weapons technology transfers from Russia to North Korea.
13:47
Putin's war has given Pyongyang something else of critical importance
13:51
real-time battlefield feedback
13:53
on its weapons systems.
13:55
That information has in all likelihood,
13:57
accelerated North Korea's ability to improve
13:59
its missile and nuclear capabilities.
14:03
And that my friends,
14:04
is the PDB afternoon bulletin
14:05
for Tuesday,
14:06
the 22nd of September.
14:08
Now,
14:08
if you have any questions or comments,
14:09
and I hope you do,
14:09
just reach out to me at PDB@thirstv.com
14:13
and to listen to the show ad-free,
14:14
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just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief
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by visiting PDBpremium.com.
14:22
I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back tomorrow.
14:24
Until then,
14:25
stay informed,
14:26
stay safe,
14:27
stay cool.
14:42
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