U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday the U.S. Navy will “immediately” begin a blockade to stop ships from entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz, after U.S.-Iran peace talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement.
Iran has demanded the right to collect tolls from vessels traveling through the strait, but Trump said no one who pays them will “have safe passage on the high seas.”
Earlier in the day, the United States and Iran ended 21 hours of face-to-face
talks in Islamabad without reaching a deal, leaving the fate of the fragile, two-week ceasefire still unclear.
“The simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters.
The war that has killed thousands of people and shaken global markets has entered its seventh week.
The U.S. delegation led by Vance and the Iranian delegation led by parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf had discussed how to advance a ceasefire already threatened by deep disagreements and Israel’s continued attacks against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Here is the latest:
Kevin Book, the managing director of research at research firm ClearView Energy Partners, said Sunday that leaner volumes generally mean tighter markets and higher prices, but “much depends on the scope and implementation of the blockade.”
“How Tehran responds matters, too. Iranian and/or Houthi reprisals against Gulf producers’ alternative routes could drive prices still higher,” Book said.
Jonathan Elkind, senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University said Trump’s statement on Fox News that implementing the blockade will take some time also adds uncertainty.
“Is this a climb down because of concerns about how sharply oil markets were set to rise in tomorrow’s trading? No one knows,” he said.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s goal in the talks with Iran was to outline America’s red lines and where there was room to negotiate. But Iran’s delegates could not agree to all of the stated red lines.
That’s according to a U.S. official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe negotiating positions on the record.
The core objective for U.S. negotiators was that Iran never obtain a nuclear weapon. But there were additional red lines set by the U.S. that Iran objected to, the official said.
The red lines include Iran ending uranium enrichment, dismantling its major enrichment facilities, allowing retrieval of its highly enriched uranium, ending funding for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, creating a broader framework for peace and security in the region, and opening the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. believes that blockading the strait will show Iran the limits of its leverage as it considers the offer, the official said.
__ By Josh Boak
Israel’s prime minister was making his first visit since the start of the current round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
“One of the things we see here is that we have essentially changed the face of the Middle East,” Netanyahu said Sunday. “Our enemies — Iran and the Axis of Evil — they came to destroy us, and now they are simply fighting for their own survival.”
Netanyahu said Saturday that Israel was working to control an 8 to 10 km (5 to 6 mile) buffer zone inside Lebanon to ensure Hezbollah does not fire close-range rockets and anti-tank missiles over the border.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy said Sunday that military vessels approaching the Strait of Hormuz “will be met with a firm and forceful response,” according to two semi-official Iranian news agencies.
Earlier Sunday, Trump said the U.S. Navy would begin a blockade on the critical waterway to stop ships from entering or leaving.
The talks in Pakistan between Iran and the U.S. ended Sunday without an agreement to end the fighting.
The mission, known as UNIFIL, said Israeli ground troops twice rammed their vehicles with a Merkava tank on Sunday.
The soldiers were blocking a road in Bayada that peacekeepers have been using to access their positions, UNIFIL said in a statement.
UNIFIL has decried attacks on its personnel and damage to its facilities since
the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah militants started on March 2. Three peacekeepers have been killed in the past month.
“Israeli soldiers have continually blocked peacekeepers’ movements on this road in recent days, in addition to denials of freedom of movement recorded in other areas,” UNIFIL said. “They hinder peacekeepers’ ability to report violations by both sides on the ground.”
Britain’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment about Trump’s assertion Sunday on Fox News.
In an April 2 meeting of top diplomats from 40 nations, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper discussed mustering their collective powers to remove mines from strait once the conflict diminished.
Cooper convened a meeting with about 30 of those nations last week to discuss restoring free movement in the shipping channel and a follow-up is scheduled this week.
In March, James Cartlidge, the opposition Conservative Party’s defense secretary, said the British Navy removed its last minesweeper from the Persian Gulf a week before the war began.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry submitted a “protest note” Sunday to the Iraqi ambassador following what it called ongoing drone attacks launched from Iraqi territories against Saudi Arabia and neighboring Gulf States.
It was not immediately clear if the Iraqi drone attacks are still taking place.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militias, said last week that it would halt its operations in Iraq and the region for two weeks, hours after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire.
Iran-backed militias in Iraq have claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks on U.S. bases and other facilities in the country in solidarity with Tehran since the war began.
President Masoud Pezeshkian told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday that his country is prepared to reach a deal that would ensure “lasting regional peace.”
Pezeshkian added that Iran’s national interests are a red line, according to a readout of the call carried by Iran’s state-media.
He criticized the U.S. use of bases in Gulf countries to carry out strikes against Iran, while maintaining that Gulf countries are “brothers” and that Tehran is willing to cooperate with them to achieve regional security “without outside powers”
Iran has said it has repeatedly struck U.S. facilities in neighboring Gulf countries since the war started in late February. Gulf countries say Iran has also targeted civilian infrastructure and facilities.
In the call with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty affirmed “the importance of adhering to the diplomatic path and prioritizing dialogue and peaceful solutions” to settle all disputes.
Abdelatty and his Pakistani counterpart, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, affirmed that they will continue their efforts to de-escalate and bridge the gaps between the U.S. and Iran.
Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey have been mediating between the U.S. and Iran since the start of the war.
Israel’s Ministry of Finance released its initial estimate of the cost of the Iran war on Sunday.
Some NIS 22 billion ($7.25 billion) has been spent on defense and military costs, including equipment and mobilizing more than 100,000 reserve soldiers, the ministry said.
Another NIS 12 billion ($4 billion) accounts for damages incurred by businesses and individuals from missiles or other related war losses, including missed days of work.
The ministry noted that some of the costs — including economic losses stemming from the war’s 40-day closure of the airports and many businesses — will only become apparent in the future.
At the height of its war with Gaza, Israel spent an estimated NIS 14 billion ($4.7 billion) per month on its military, more than double its monthly budget before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Among the dead are 252 women, 165 children, and 87 medical workers, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said in its daily casualty count.
6,588 others have been wounded.
The U.S. president said his threat to impose 50% tariffs on goods from countries that sold weapons to Iran was aimed at China.
Trump told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that has heard reports of China giving anti-aircraft “shoulder missiles” to Iran. He played down the possibility of China supplying weapons to Iran, but said their goods would be taxed if they did.
“I doubt they would do that, because I have a relationship, and I think they wouldn’t do that, but maybe they did a little bit at the beginning,” Trump said. “But if we catch them doing that, they get a 50% tariff.”
Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
He told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that his threat brought Iran to the negotiating table. He also said the Islamic Republic has made worse statements, such as “Death to America. Death to Israel. America is a Satan.”
Trump issued new warnings to strike Iran’s civilian infrastructure if its leaders don’t agree to give up its nuclear program.
“In one half of a day they wouldn’t have one bridge standing, they wouldn’t have one electric generating plant standing and they’re back in the stone ages,” Trump said.
“I don’t understand how blockading the strait is going to somehow push the Iranians into opening it. I don’t get the connection there,” Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Warner, the vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, said he didn’t see “how blockading the strait gets it open suddenly, I don’t get that logic.”
Authorities on Sunday removed the barricades, shipping containers and roadside checkpoints that had been in place since before the rare face-to-face talks.
The normally bustling city had taken on a near-curfew-like atmosphere after the government announced two holidays for security reasons. Roads in the capital were largely deserted for days and even ambulances were forced to take longer routes.
The incident happened 54 nautical miles (62 miles) southwest of the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said. UKMTO is part of the Royal Navy.
It said the skiff was turned away after the vessel’s master deployed a flare. The UKMTO report did not specify the nature or country of origin of the vessel that was approached.
Hodeida is controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
Defending his planned blockade, the U.S. president said Sunday that Iran cannot control which ships go through the Strait of Hormuz, declaring that either every ship should have safe passage or none would.
“We’re not going to let Iran make money on selling oil to people that they like,” Trump said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“It’s going to be all or none and that’s the way it is,” the president said.
The blockade will be similar to what the U.S. did with Venezuela, though on a larger scale, Trump said, suggesting that more tankers would come to the U.S. to buy oil as a result of the blockade.
