Donald Trump says US will block ships crossing Strait of Hormuz

Trump sought before the war to exert strategic control over the waterway responsible for transporting 20 percent of the world’s oil supplies, hoping to take away Iran’s main source of economic power in the fighting.

The president added that he has “directed our Navy to identify and interdict any ship in international waters that has paid tolls to Iran.”

“No one who pays illegal tolls will have safe passage across the high seas,” he said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Trump also said the US was prepared to finish off Iran at the “appropriate time”, stressing that Tehran’s nuclear ambitions were at the heart of its inability to end the war.

The face-to-face talks ended earlier on Sunday after 9pm, leaving a fragile two-week ceasefire in doubt.

US officials said the negotiations failed because of what they described as Iran’s refusal to give up on the path to a nuclear weapon, while Iranian officials blamed the US for the failure of the talks without specifying the sticking points.

Neither side has indicated what will happen after the 14-day ceasefire ends on April 22. Pakistani mediators have urged all parties to uphold this. Both said their positions were clear and blamed the other side, underscoring how little the gap had narrowed during the talks.

“We need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and that they will not seek the tools that would allow them to quickly develop a nuclear weapon,” US Vice President JD Vance said after the talks.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who led Iran in the negotiations, said it is time for the United States “to decide whether it can win our trust or not.”

He made no mention of the nuclear disputes in a series of social media posts, although Iranian officials previously said the talks failed over two or three key issues, blaming what they called American overreach.

Iran has long denied it wants nuclear weapons, but has insisted on its right to a civilian nuclear program. It has made written “affirmative commitments” in the past, including in the historic 2015 nuclear deal. Experts say the stockpile of enriched uranium, while not weapons-grade, is just a short technical step away.

Since the US and Israel began the war on February 28, it has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, in 2020 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in the Gulf Arab states, and caused lasting damage to infrastructure in half a dozen Middle Eastern countries. Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz has largely cut off the Persian Gulf and its oil and gas exports from the global economy, sending energy prices soaring.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said his country will try to facilitate a new dialogue between Iran and the US in the coming days.

“It is imperative that the parties continue to adhere to their ceasefire commitment,” Dar said.

The standoff — and Vance’s take-it-or-leave-it proposal that Iran end its nuclear program — mirrored February’s nuclear talks in Switzerland. Although Trump has said the ensuing war was intended to force Iran’s leaders to give up their nuclear ambitions, both sides’ positions appeared unchanged during negotiations after six weeks of fighting.

An Iranian diplomatic official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the closed-door talks, denied that negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions had failed.

“Iran does not seek to acquire nuclear weapons, but has the right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” they said, reiterating Iran’s long-standing negotiating position.

There was no word on whether they would resume, although Iran said it was open to continuing dialogue, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported.

“We never wanted war. But if they try to win through talks what they could not win on the battlefield, that is absolutely unacceptable,” said 60-year-old Mohammad Bagher Karami in central Tehran.

The US wants to change the status quo in the Strait of Hormuz

The United States and Iran entered talks with starkly different proposals and opposing assumptions about their leverage to end the war. Before the negotiations began, the ceasefire was already threatened by deep disagreements and Israel’s continued attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran’s 10-point proposal ahead of the talks called for a guaranteed end to the war and sought control of the Strait of Hormuz. It included ending the fight against Iran’s “regional allies,” explicitly calling for a halt to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah.

Pakistani officials told The Associated Press in March that the U.S. 15-point proposal included monitoring mechanisms and a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program. Speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details, they said it included the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s closure of the strait has proven to be its biggest strategic advantage in the war.

During the talks, the US military said two destroyers crossed the critical waterway ahead of demining operations, a first since the start of the war. However, Iranian state media reported that the country’s Joint Military Command denied this.

“We’re navigating the situation. Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me,” Trump said as talks stretched into early Sunday morning.

Israel continues in Lebanon

The standoff raises new questions about the fighting in Lebanon. Israel has continued strikes since announcing the ceasefire, saying the agreement did not apply there. Iran and Pakistan claimed otherwise.

The Lebanese state news agency reported that six people were killed in an Israeli attack on Sunday morning in Maaroub, a village near the southern coastal city of Tyre. While Israel’s attacks on Beirut have calmed down in recent days, attacks on southern Lebanon have intensified, in addition to a ground invasion that was renewed after Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel in the early days of the war with Iran.

Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are expected to start in Washington on Tuesday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s office said, following Israel’s surprise announcement that talks were being allowed despite the lack of official ties between the countries. Protests broke out in Beirut on Saturday over the planned negotiations.

Israel wants the Lebanese government to take responsibility for disarming Hezbollah, just as envisaged in the November 2024 ceasefire. But the militant group has survived decades of attempts to curb its power.

On the day the ceasefire with Iran was announced, Israel bombarded Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 people in Lebanon’s deadliest day since the war began, the country’s health ministry said.

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