Clear Hormuz Strait, postpone nuke talks if blockade, war end
In this handout photo provided by U.S. Central Command, U.S. forces patrol the Arabian Sea near M/V Touska on April 20, 2026, after firing upon the Iranian-flagged vessel that the U.S. accused of attempting to violate the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports near the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Navy | Getty Images
Iran has offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. lifts its blockade of Iranian ports and the war ends, while setting aside negotiations on its nuclear ambitions for a later date, Axios and The Associated Press reported Monday.
It is unclear if President Donald Trump, who has vowed not to lift the blockade until a deal with Iran is “100% complete,” will entertain the reported offer to end the 2-month-old war.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Fox News interview later Monday morning appeared to pour cold water on any Iranian proposal to clear the strategically vital strait.
“What they mean by opening the straits is, ‘Yes, the straits are open, as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission, or we’ll blow you up and you pay us,'” Rubio said, when asked about Trump’s claim Saturday that Iran had sent a “much better” offer.
“That’s not opening the straits. Those are international waterways. They cannot normalize, nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize, a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway and how much you have to pay them to use it,” Rubio said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she will brief reporters at 1 p.m. ET.
The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted the central goal of the conflict is keeping Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“Everything will be peanuts compared to that, if they ever were given a nuclear weapon,” Trump said Saturday night when he spoke to reporters at the White House after a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
But efforts at a diplomatic solution appeared to hit a sudden roadblock over the weekend.
A boy raises his fist while standing on a giant Iranian flag during the funeral of Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ navy, alongside others killed in US-Israeli strikes on Iran at Enghelab Square in Tehran on April 1, 2026.
– | Afp | Getty Images
Trump on Saturday canceled plans for his son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with their Iranian counterparts in Pakistan. “Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work!” he wrote in a Truth Social post, while asserting the U.S. still has “all the cards.”
Trump announced the decision after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had departed Islamabad after only speaking with Pakistani officials, Reuters reported.
After sending the social media post, Trump reportedly told reporters that Iran had followed up with a “much better” offer, without saying what it contained.
“They gave us a paper that should have been better. And interestingly, immediately, when I canceled it, within 10 minutes, we got a new paper that was…
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