No big deal: murky Iran-war negotiations
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.3 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
More mixed messages from President Donald Trump and air strikes that seem to violate the ceasefire: all that is remotely in prospect is a deal to keep on dealmaking. China’s “superapps” are pioneering the use of agentic AI—with some odd outcomes. And the curious reason that grouse harm themselves on ski lifts (and how to save them).
Guests and host:
- Gregg Carlstrom, Middle East correspondent
- Don Weinland, China business and finance editor
- Matt Kaplan, science correspondent
- Rosie Blau, co-host of “The Intelligence”
- Jason Palmer, co-host of “The Intelligence”
Topics covered:
- Iran war, diplomacy
- China, business, agentic AI
- birds, science
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist. |
| 0:09.6 | Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. |
| 0:12.8 | I'm Jason Palmer. |
| 0:13.9 | And I'm Rosie Bloor. |
| 0:19.1 | Today on the show, Agentic AI comes to China's super apps and solving the great ski resort grouse mystery. |
| 0:33.5 | First up, though. |
| 0:36.9 | Music First up, though. If you're confused about the status of talks between America and Iran, you're in good company. |
| 0:48.3 | Even the state of the ceasefire is unclear. |
| 0:52.3 | Overnight, America launched new air strikes on Iranian missile sites and mine-laying boats, |
| 0:57.8 | couching them as acts of self-defense. |
| 1:00.5 | And thanks to America's mixed messenger-in-chief, how diplomacy is progressing, remains really murky. |
| 1:09.5 | Despite the American strikes overnight, we are now almost two months into what was supposed to be a two-week ceasefire, but it still seems we are of some way from a lasting deal to end the war. |
| 1:23.1 | Greg Carlstrom is our Middle East correspondent. |
| 1:25.6 | Now, going into the weekend, there had been some optimism |
| 1:28.5 | about an interim agreement that might extend the ceasefire. Envoys from the mediating countries |
| 1:34.6 | visited Iran on Friday. Donald Trump seemed to imply on Saturday that a deal was imminent, |
| 1:40.2 | but then we heard mixed messages. He said he was in no rush to get deal done. And as we're |
| 1:45.0 | speaking now on Tuesday morning, we still haven't reached even that interim agreement. But what sort of |
| 1:51.1 | progress has been made? What is now on the table, perhaps, that hasn't been before, or is there |
| 1:56.0 | anything? I do think America and Iran are closer than they were to that interim deal, which the Americans are sometimes calling a letter of intent or a memorandum of understanding to end the war. |
| 2:10.9 | Effectively, it's a deal to keep talking about a deal. |
| 2:14.9 | So we would likely extend the ceasefire by 60 days, and then it would set out |
... |
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