![\"Iran](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/trump-vows-to-continue-blockade-despite-iran-reopening-strait-of-hormuz.jpg\")
Motorbikes drive past a billboard that shows a graphic depicting a soldier\u2019s hand holding the Strait of Hormuz (Vahid Salemi\/AP)\n<\/p>\nIran said it has fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial vessels but Donald Trump said the blockade on Iranian ships and ports \u201cwill remain in full force\u201d until Tehran reaches a deal with the US including on its nuclear programme.<\/p>\n
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that the waterway, through which about 20% of the world\u2019s oil is shipped, was now fully open to commercial vessels, as a 10-day truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon appeared to hold.<\/p>\n
Mr Araghchi said ships will use routes designated by the Islamic Republic in co-ordination with Iranian authorities, suggesting Iran planned to retain some level of control over the channel. It was not clear if vessels would have to pay tolls.<\/p>\n
A data firm, Kpler, said movement through the strait remained confined to corridors requiring Iran\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n
The US president initially celebrated the Iranian announcement, posting on social media that the strait was \u201cfully open and ready for full passage\u201d.<\/p>\n
But minutes later, he issued another post saying the US Navy\u2019s blockade would continue \u201cUNTIL SUCH TIME AS OUR TRANSACTION WITH IRAN IS 100% COMPLETE\u201d.<\/p>\n
Motorbikes drive past a billboard that shows a graphic depicting a soldier\u2019s hand holding the Strait of Hormuz (Vahid Salemi\/AP)\n<\/p>\n
The president also said Iran, with help from the US, is working to remove all mines from the strait.<\/p>\n
But the commander of the Iranian navy, Shahram Irani, said on Friday evening that Mr Trump \u201chas blockaded his friends\u201d and not Iran.<\/p>\n
In a statement carried by Mizan, Iran\u2019s official judiciary news agency, the navy chief said Mr Trump\u2019s blockade is just \u201cempty words\u201d and that no one is listening to him.<\/p>\n
The US military says it has turned 19 ships back to Iran since imposing the blockade earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump imposed the blockade earlier this week after Iran restricted traffic through the strait due to fighting in Lebanon, which Iran claimed was a breach of the Pakistan-brokered ceasefire reached between the US, Israel and Iran.<\/p>\n
At the time, Mr Trump said the blockade would enforce an \u201call or none\u201d policy in hopes of pressuring Iran to reopen the strait.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s decision to continue the blockade despite Iran\u2019s announcement appeared aimed at sustaining pressure on Tehran as the fate of the two-week ceasefire reached last week remained uncertain. The ceasefire has paused almost seven weeks of war between Israel, the US and Iran.<\/p>\n
Direct talks between the US and Iran last weekend were inconclusive, as the two nations could not come to agreement about Iran\u2019s nuclear programme and other points.<\/p>\n
![\"APTOPIX](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776486369_483_trump-vows-to-continue-blockade-despite-iran-reopening-strait-of-hormuz.jpg\")
A woman member of the Basij paramilitary, affiliated with Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard, holds her gun during a state-organised rally (Vahid Salemi\/AP)\n<\/p>\n
Two semi-official news agencies in Iran seemed to challenge Mr Araghchi\u2019s announcement about the strait.<\/p>\n
Considered close to Iran\u2019s powerful Revolutionary Guard, the Fars news agency issued a series of posts on X criticising what it said was a lack of clarity over the decision to reopen the waterway and a \u201cstrange silence from the Supreme National Security Council and the negotiating team\u201d.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Supreme National Security Council has recently acted as the country\u2019s de facto top decision-making body amid doubts over the status of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who was reportedly wounded early in the war.<\/p>\n
The Mehr news agency also said the decision to reopen the strait needed \u201cclarification\u201d and required the supreme leader\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n
On Friday the first cruise ship transited the Strait of Hormuz since the Iran war began.<\/p>\n
The vessel-tracker MarineTraffic said the Malta-flagged passenger vessel, reportedly sailing without passengers and bound for Oman, left Dubai on Friday after remaining docked for 47 days.<\/p>\n
It said the Celestial Discovery ship is expected to arrive in Oman on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Oil prices fell on Friday on hopes that the US and Iran were drawing closer to a deal. The head of the International Energy Agency had warned that the energy crisis could get worse if the strait did not reopen.<\/p>\n
China is open to taking possession or downgrading some 970 pounds (440 kilograms) of enriched uranium that Mr Trump says must be removed from Iran as part of a deal to end the war, according to a diplomat familiar with Beijing\u2019s thinking on the matter.<\/p>\n
At the moment, it appears Mr Trump wants the US to take custody of the material that is believed buried under nuclear sites badly damaged in an American bombardment last June.<\/p>\n
The truce in Lebanon could clear one major obstacle to a deal between Iran, the United States and Israel to end weeks of devastating war. But it was unclear to what extent Hezbollah would abide by a deal it did not play a role in negotiating and which will leave Israeli troops occupying a stretch of southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump said in another post that Israel is \u201cprohibited\u201d by the US from further strikes on Lebanon and that \u201cenough is enough\u201d in the Israel-Hezbollah war. The White House did not immediately respond to a question about whether the prohibition spans both offensive and defensive strikes.<\/p>\n
Shortly before Mr Trump\u2019s post, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel agreed to the ceasefire in Lebanon \u201cat the request of my friend President Trump\u201d but that the campaign against Hezbollah is not complete.<\/p>\n
He claimed Israel had destroyed about 90% of Hezbollah\u2019s missile and rocket stockpiles and added that Israeli forces \u201chave not finished yet\u201d with the dismantling of the group.<\/p>\n
In Beirut, celebratory gunshots rang out at the start of the truce. Displaced families began moving toward southern Lebanon and Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs despite warnings by officials not to return to their homes until it became clear whether the ceasefire would hold.<\/p>\n
The Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon had reported sporadic artillery shelling in some parts of southern Lebanon in the hours after the ceasefire took effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran said it has fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial vessels but Donald Trump said the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-404544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}