The sun is setting on the Strait of Hormuz, but hope for positive developments in the friendship negotiations remains.Image: keystone
After major announcements, the well-known strait is closed again. The background is a new power play that US President Trump wants to set up.
April 18, 2026, 10:22 p.mApril 18, 2026, 10:22 p.m
Simon Maurer / ch media
The markets reacted frenetically: After the Iranian Foreign Minister announced on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened, the price of oil fell to its lowest level in weeks at $88 per barrel. Optimistic observers already assumed that the conflict could enter its final phase and be resolved at the negotiating table. The first ships were already passing through the strait again.
Then came a headache awakening for everyone involved. US President Donald Trump announced that the US will not lift its own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Only when a final peace deal is reached would the United States give its blessing for merchant ships to be allowed to transit the Gulf passage.
Iran is shooting at merchant ships again
The US blockade is the latest attempt by the US President to further increase pressure on the Iranian side. Because of the maneuver, Iran will lose its previous decision-making power over which countries and companies are allowed to travel through the Strait of Hormuz. A “yes” from the Iranian authorities no longer means that countries like China or Pakistan can get their oil tankers through. You now have to negotiate a “go” from the US government for each ship.
The widely announced opening of the Hormuz turns out to be a nonsense. In fact, no ships are currently sailing through the Gulf, data from ship monitoring services showed on Saturday.
Iran is thus losing one of its most important sources of income. The Iranian leadership reacted accordingly nervously to the developments. Tehran spoke of a violation of the negotiated ceasefire and intervened in shipping traffic again, with the Revolutionary Guards firing on several tankers.
Trump needs a quick signal from Iran
Iran also tightened the screw rhetorically. A statement was read out on Iranian state television that is said to have come directly from Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. Iran’s navy is ready to “inflict bitter defeats on the enemy.” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf also warned that Hormuz would not be opened as long as the US blockade continued.
The background is the stalled negotiations, which are currently taking place behind the scenes. Another official round of talks is being discussed, for example in Islamabad next week, but a date has not yet been set. At the same time, Trump’s latest deadline of threatening to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure is about to expire. If no agreement is reached by next Wednesday, there is a risk of major escalation.
Trump’s self-imposed deadline is one of the main reasons why the Republican is now trying everything to quickly find an agreement at the negotiating table. The US President’s foreign policy is viewed more and more critically within his own ranks. A resolution that would have limited Trump’s authority to bomb Iran again was defeated in Congress last week by a razor-thin margin of one vote. With the US blockade now in effect and its potential consequences, the president is taking on additional risk.
It is unclear whether the positive developments of the week will hold
At a press conference on Saturday morning, Trump was emphatically confident, as he has always been in recent weeks. “She [die Iraner] got a little cheeky, like they’ve been doing for 47 years,” he told reporters in the Oval Office after signing an executive order easing federal restrictions on psychedelics. “It’s actually going very well and we’ll see – but we’ll have some information by the end of the day.”
He was alluding to the fact that he expects a new official round of talks, which may be announced soon – and could entail a further postponement of the energy infrastructure threat.
If one were to be announced before the stock market opened on Monday, it would be a good sign for the global economy, which has been in decline since the start of the war. The easing of oil prices is particularly important news for the poorer countries in Asia, because they are even more dependent on low oil prices to maintain their economies than most countries in the West. (aargauerzeitung.ch)