Trump Threatens Hormuz Blockade After Failed Iran Talks

President Donald Trump has said that the US Navy will “blockade any and all ships” trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz – a vital shipping route.

In a separate post on Truth Social, he added that direct talks with Iran in Islamabad failed because “Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions.”

Earlier, Iran’s delegation leader said the US failed to gain Tehran’s trust during lengthy negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Shipping expert Lars Jensen said that Trump’s threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz will only affect a small handful of vessels that are still navigating the waterway.

“If this is actually done by the Americans, it will halt a very tiny trickle of vessels. In the greater scheme of things, it doesn’t really change anything,” he said

Jensen, chief executive of Vespucci Maritime, said Trump’s threat of preventing safe passage for any ships paying tolls to Iran would also have little impact, as any company doing so would already face sanctions for paying the regime.

“First of all, there are very few ships that pass. There’s even fewer of those that pay, and those that pay will already be subject to American sanctions,” he said.

Most shipping companies will continue to wait and see if there is a tentative peace agreement and whether that might hold, Jensen said, adding that if that occurs, a slow ramping up of shipping may resume.

As for what it would take shipping lines to decide whether it was safe to transit the strait again, he said the honest answer from those firms would be that they don’t know.

“Because at the end of it, it boils down to trust: trust that any agreement between the US and Iranians will hold for a significant portion of time, and that’s a subjective feeling, there is nothing hard and tangible you can point to,” he said.

Trump is threatening any country who pays Iran “an illegal toll” to get through the vital shipping lane. There have been reports that some ships have passed through after paying a very expensive fee to Iran.

Before these talks, he claimed there has been regime change in Iran, with new and more “reasonable” leaders, but they are now “volatile, difficult, unpredictable people.”

But, he did acknowledge there had been points of agreement during these talks, and “that’s a sense we had here in Islamabad, as we heard technical experts became involved and talks continued into the early hours of the morning.”

Trump has also said the US delegation became “very friendly” and “respectful” of Iran’s delegation, which would suggest some sort of working relationship difficult to imagine before this weekend.