As peace talks open in Pakistan, Donald Trump claims US Navy has reopened strategic maritime passage
Saturday, Donald Trump announced via his Truth Social platform that the United States had officially begun “the process of unblocking” the Strait of Hormuz. This operation, presented by the president as a “favor” granted to third countries like China, Japan, France, and Germany, aims to restore free passage in waters that Washington considers as international.
According to multiple US security sources cited by Axios and the Wall Street Journal, two US Navy missile destroyer ships indeed crossed the passage on Saturday. This military maneuver is intended to reassure merchant ships, whose traffic has been almost entirely interrupted by Iranian activities since the beginning of the conflict. Donald Trump also criticized Iran, stating that the threat of naval mines belonged to the past, as he claimed that the majority of Iran’s mine-laying fleet had been “sent to the bottom of the sea” by recent US strikes.
In his message on Truth Social, Donald Trump also lambasted the media for suggesting that Iran is winning the war against the United States, stating that “everyone knows they are losing, and losing big in reality.”
On the Iranian state television side, a high-ranking military official categorically denied any passage of US warships in the strait. Meanwhile, maritime tracking services like MarineTraffic only note a very timid resumption of traffic at the moment, limited to a few dry cargo bulk carriers, far from the normalcy expected by energy markets.
Priority on the nuclear issue
This show of force comes as a high-level American delegation, led by Vice President JD Vance, Jared Kushner, and special envoy Steve Witkoff, arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan, to initiate peace negotiations with Tehran. The full and unconditional reopening of the strait is one of the central demands of the White House to ensure the sustainability of the two-week ceasefire agreed last Tuesday. Karoline Leavitt, a presidential spokesperson, firmly rejected any Iranian claim to levy taxes on ships or impose prior military coordination for passage.
Beyond maritime security, Donald Trump reiterated that the primary goal of these negotiations remains the nuclear issue. “No nuclear weapon. That’s 99% of the agreement,” he stated before his team’s departure for Pakistan. Without providing details, the American president also claimed that “empty tankers from many countries are all heading towards the United States of America to LOAD up on oil.”
