ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Trump on Sunday said the U.S. Navy would “immediately” begin a blockade to stop ships from entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz, after historic U.S.-Iran peace talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement or next steps in sight.
Hours later, U.S. Central Command announced that it will begin the blockade of Iranian ports on Monday at 10 a.m. Eastern.
Central Command said the blockade would be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations” entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas.
It said it would still allow ships traveling between non-Iranian ports to transit the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump wants to weaken Iran’s key leverage in the war after demanding that it reopen the strait to all global traffic on the waterway that was responsible for 20% of global oil shipping before fighting began.
A U.S. blockade could further rattle global energy markets. “It’s going to be all or none, and that’s the way it is,” Trump told Fox News.
Trump said he has “instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.” Other nations would be involved in the planned blockade, he said, but did not name them.
Freedom of peaceful navigation is a basic principle of international maritime trade, but Iran has asserted control of the strait.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps later said the strait remained under Iran’s “full control” and was open for nonmilitary vessels, but military ones would get a “forceful response,” two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported.
During the 21-hour talks, the U.S. military said two destroyers had transited the strait ahead of mine-clearing work, a first since the war began. Iran denied that.
Trump’s plan to use the Navy to block the strait is unrealistic and he will have to concede on some issues with Iran, said Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in security studies at Kings College London. “There isn’t any tool in the toolbox in terms of the military lever that he could use to get his way,” Krieg said.
Trump said Tehran’s nuclear ambitions were at the core of the talks’ failure. In comments to Fox News, he again threatened to strike civilian infrastructure.
Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who led the Iranian delegation, addressed Trump in a new statement on his return to Iran: “If you fight, we will fight.”
Vice President JD Vance, left, talks to Pakistani Chief of Defense Forces Asim Munir, right, and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, center, before boarding Air Force Two on Sunday after the talks in Islamabad.
(Jacquelyn Martin / Pool Photo)
No word on what happens after ceasefire expires
The face-to-face talks that ended early Sunday were the highest-level negotiations between the longtime rivals since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Neither side indicated what will happen after the ceasefire expires April 22. Each said its position was clear and blamed the other.
“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, leading the U.S. side, said afterward.
Iranian negotiators could not agree to all U.S. “red lines,” said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe positions on the record.
These included Iran never obtaining a nuclear weapon, ending uranium enrichment, dismantling major enrichment facilities and allowing retrieval of its highly enriched uranium, along with opening the Strait of Hormuz and ending funding for Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi militants.
Iranian officials said talks fell apart over two or three key issues, blaming what they called U.S. overreach. Qalibaf, who noted progress in negotiations, said it was time for the United States “to decide whether it can gain our trust or not.”
Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said his country would try to facilitate a new dialogue between Iran and the U.S. in the coming days.
Iran said it was open to continuing the dialogue, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
The European Union urged further diplomatic efforts. The foreign minister of Oman, located on the Strait of Hormuz’s southern coast, called for parties to “make painful concessions.” The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin “emphasized his readiness” to help bring about a diplomatic settlement in a call with Iran’s president.
Nuclear program is a sticking point
Iran’s nuclear program was at the center of tensions long before the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28. The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, 2,055 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in gulf Arab states, and caused lasting damage to infrastructure in half a dozen countries.
Tehran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons but insisted on its right to a civilian nuclear program. A landmark 2015 nuclear deal, from which Trump later unilaterally withdrew the U.S., had taken well over a year of negotiations. Experts say Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is only a short technical step away from reaching weapons-grade level.
An Iranian diplomatic official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of closed-door talks, denied that negotiations had failed over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Iran is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, but it has the right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” the official said.
In the Islamic Republic, there was fresh exhaustion and anger after months of unrest that had begun with nationwide protests against economic issues and then political ones, followed by weeks of sheltering from U.S. and Israeli bombardment.
“We have never sought war. But if they try to win what they failed to win on the battlefield through talks, that’s absolutely unacceptable,” 60-year-old Mohammad Bagher Karami said in Tehran.
Elsewhere in the region, reported airstrikes calmed over the past day except in Lebanon.
Tehran’s 10-point proposal for the talks explicitly called for a halt to Israeli strikes on the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel has said the ceasefire did not apply in Lebanon, but Iran and Pakistan said it did.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited parts of southern Lebanon under Israeli control on Sunday for the first time since the current round of fighting began.
Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are expected to begin Tuesday in Washington after Israel’s surprise announcement authorizing talks despite the two nations’ lack of official relations.
Israel wants Lebanon’s government to assume responsibility for disarming Hezbollah, but the militant group has survived efforts to curb its strength for decades.
The day the Iran ceasefire deal was announced, Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 people, according to the Health Ministry.
Ahmed, Boak, Metz and Magdy write for the Associated Press. Boak reported from Miami, Metz from Ramallah, West Bank, and Magdy from Cairo. AP writers E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing, Collin Binkley and Ben Finley in Washington, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Ghaya Ben MBarek in Tunis contributed to this report.