Vance says ‘no agreement reached’ in US and Iran peace talks
Vice President JD Vance said the United States was unable to reach an agreement to end the war in Iran after negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan.
A day after failed peace negotiations between the United States and Iran in Islamabad, President Donald Trump said the U.S. Navy will start blockading the Strait of Hormuz.
In back-to-back posts made to social media early Sunday, April 12, Trump said the United States will also interdict every vessel in international waters that had paid a toll to Iran to pass through the critical shipping route.
“No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”
A blockade, which Trump described as “effective immediately,” would be a significant escalation in the Persian Gulf, coming mere hours after U.S-.Iran peace talks ended without a deal. The U.S. and Iran have been in a tenuous, two-week ceasefire that began April 7.
Vice President JD Vance said the United States was unable to reach an agreement to end the war in Iran after a marathon meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan, that saw U.S. and Iranian officials meet face-to-face, the first peace talks between the two nations in 47 years. Trump said in one of his April 12 Truth Social posts that the meeting “went well” and that “most points were agreed to,” except the issue of Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump had said in a social media post on Saturday, April 11, before the talks began, that the United States is “clearing out” the Strait of Hormuz, though Trump and other officials did not release any specific timeline or details of the reopening.
The concept of tolls has become a contentious issue as the United States and Iran continue to tussle over the strait, which Iran has effectively closed since the joint U.S.-Israeli war began more than six weeks ago.
Trump has previously said he would oppose any Iran-controlled tolls placed on ships allowed to pass through the chokepoint, and has floated the idea of the United States, instead, charging tolls.
This story has been updated to add new information.
Kathryn Palmer is a politics reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr. Sign up for her daily politics newsletter here.