Trump threatens Strait of Hormuz blockade after US-Iran ceasefire talks end without agreement

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Sun­day said the U.S. Navy would “im­me­di­ate­ly” be­gin a block­ade of ships en­ter­ing or leav­ing the Strait of Hor­muz, af­ter U.S.-Iran cease­fire talks in Pak­istan end­ed with­out an agree­ment or next diplo­mat­ic steps in sight.

In his first pub­lic com­ments af­ter the 21-hour talks, Trump sought to elim­i­nate Iran’s key source of lever­age in the war by ex­ert­ing strate­gic con­trol over the wa­ter­way that was re­spon­si­ble for the ship­ping of 20% of glob­al oil sup­plies be­fore fight­ing be­gan.

A U.S. block­ade could fur­ther rat­tle glob­al en­er­gy mar­kets and prices for oil, nat­ur­al gas and re­lat­ed prod­ucts. It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear how it might be car­ried out, but Trump told Fox News the goal was to en­sure all ships could tran­sit: “It’s go­ing to be all or none, and that’s the way it is.”

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 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.

Dur­ing the 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 stressed that Tehran’s nu­clear am­bi­tions were at the core of the fail­ure to end the war, and the U.S. was ready to “fin­ish up” Iran at the “ap­pro­pri­ate mo­ment.” In com­ments to Fox News, he again threat­ened to strike civil­ian in­fra­struc­ture and said he was fine with his wide­ly crit­i­cized threat short­ly be­fore the cease­fire that a “whole civ­i­liza­tion will die tonight.”

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. Both del­e­ga­tions lat­er left Is­lam­abad.

Nei­ther in­di­cat­ed what will hap­pen af­ter the 14-day cease­fire ex­pires on April 22. Pak­istani me­di­a­tors urged all par­ties to main­tain it. Each side said their po­si­tions were 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.

Vice President JD Vance, left, talks to Pakistan's Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshall Asim Munir, right, and Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, center, before boarding Air Force Two after attending talks on Iran in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

Jacquelyn Martin

Iran’s par­lia­ment speak­er Mo­ham­mad Bagher Qal­ibaf, who led Iran’s side, said it was time for the Unit­ed States “to de­cide whether it can gain our trust or not.” Iran­ian of­fi­cials ear­li­er said talks fell apart over two or three key is­sues, blam­ing what they called U.S. over­reach.

Pak­istani For­eign Min­is­ter Ishaq Dar said his coun­try will try to fa­cil­i­tate a new di­a­logue in the com­ing days. Iran said it was open to con­tin­u­ing the di­a­logue, Iran’s state-run IR­NA 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.

Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram is a key 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. The land­mark 2015 nu­clear deal, which Trump lat­er pulled the U.S. out of, took well over a year of ne­go­ti­a­tions. Ex­perts say Iran’s stock­pile of en­riched ura­ni­um, though not weapons-grade, is on­ly a short tech­ni­cal step away.

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

In­side Iran, there was fresh ex­haus­tion and anger af­ter months of un­rest that be­gan with na­tion­wide protests against eco­nom­ic is­sues and then po­lit­i­cal ones, which turned in­to 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.

More ques­tions as Is­rael press­es ahead in Lebanon

Iran’s 10-point pro­pos­al for the talks called for a guar­an­teed end to the war, in­clud­ing the end of fight­ing against Iran’s “re­gion­al al­lies,” ex­plic­it­ly call­ing for a halt to Is­raeli strikes on the Iran­ian-backed Hezbol­lah in Lebanon.

Is­rael has said the cease­fire did not ap­ply in Lebanon, but Iran and Pak­istan said it did. Ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Is­rael and Lebanon are ex­pect­ed to be­gin Tues­day in Wash­ing­ton af­ter Is­rael’s sur­prise an­nounce­ment au­tho­riz­ing talks de­spite their lack of of­fi­cial re­la­tions.

The day the Iran cease­fire deal was an­nounced, Is­rael pound­ed Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 peo­ple in the dead­liest day in Lebanon since the war be­gan, ac­cord­ing to the coun­try’s Health Min­istry.

Though Is­rael’s strikes have calmed in Beirut, its at­tacks on south­ern Lebanon have in­ten­si­fied along­side the ground in­va­sion it re­newed af­ter Hezbol­lah launched rock­ets to­ward Is­rael in the war’s open­ing days.

Lebanon’s state-run Na­tion­al News Agency re­port­ed six peo­ple were killed Sun­day by a strike in Maaroub vil­lage near the coastal city of Tyre.

Is­rael wants Lebanon’s gov­ern­ment to as­sume re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for dis­arm­ing Hezbol­lah, but the mil­i­tant group has sur­vived ef­forts to curb its strength for decades. —IS­LAM­ABAD (AP)

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Sto­ry by MU­NIR AHMED, JOSH BOAK and SAM METZ | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Sam Metz re­port­ed from Ra­mal­lah, West Bank; Josh Boak from Mi­a­mi; and Samy Magdy from Cairo. 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.