Trump orders Hormuz blockade after historic US-Iran peace talks fail
Make us a preferred source
Make us a preferred source on Google
The news: US President Donald Trump ordered a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after 21 hours of historic US-Iran peace talks in Islamabad ended without a deal, threatening to deepen a global energy crisis and throwing a fragile two-week ceasefire into doubt.
Trump made the announcement on Truth Social as Vice-President JD Vance departed Pakistan empty-handed from the highest-level direct talks between the two countries since diplomatic relations were severed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Trump also ordered the navy to “interdict” any vessel that had paid Iran a transit toll, saying “no one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.”
According to reports from The New York Times, citing Iranian officials, three issues proved insurmountable: the reopening of the strait, the fate of nearly 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium and Iran’s demand for approximately USD27 billion in frozen revenue held in Iraq, Luxembourg, Bahrain, Japan, Qatar, Turkey and Germany to be released for reconstruction.
Vance said Iran refused to give an “affirmative commitment” not to seek nuclear weapons.
Iran’s lead negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a post on X that despite Iran raising “forward-looking initiatives,” the US had been unable to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of talks — and that it was now up to Washington “to decide whether it can earn our trust or not.”
The numbers: Meanwhile, Oil prices, which had fallen to around USD95 a barrel after last week’s ceasefire, now face renewed upward pressure. The FT tracked just 36 ship movements through the strait over the weekend, against 172 on a typical pre-war Sunday. The ceasefire expires 22 April.
The sources: Donald Trump post, The Financial Times , The New York Times , Associated Press
