Donald Trump

Police in New York have arrested around 100 anti-war protesters who were staging a sit-in outside the offices of Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, demanding an end to US weapons sales to Israel. The demonstration comes as Senator Bernie Sanders pushes to block more than $600m worth of bombs bound for Israel’s military.

Shipping costs have increased by more than 10 percent in the past month due to the US-Israel war on Iran.

Shipping and oil costs have continued to surge a month after United States President Donald Trump issued a waiver for the Jones Act, a maritime law that bars foreign-flagged vessels from transporting goods between US ports.

The 60-day waiver came into effect on March 18, as the movement of energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that carries roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supply, was choked off on account of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Under the Jones Act, goods shipped between US ports must be carried on vessels that are US-built, US-flagged and mostly US-owned, limiting the number of tankers available for domestic shipments.

The Trump administration argued that the temporary waiver of the law would lower energy costs. As the waiver approaches the 30-day mark, it has had little impact on oil prices.

“It is estimated that it’s going to be about 3 cents on the East Coast and it might go up on the Gulf Coast, but these changes are so small that they’re overshadowed by the spikes in oil prices, and the oil prices keep going up,” Usha Haley, a professor of management at the Wichita State University, told Al Jazeera.

“It is minuscule, a drop in the bucket compared to the rise in oil prices.”

Oil prices have continued to rise amid the ongoing conflict, which is disrupting transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude futures rose 4 percent on the day amid a US blockade of Iranian ports, reaching $98.91 after hitting $101.03 earlier in the day. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose $2.53, or 2.6 percent, to $99.10.

The US Navy imposed a blockade of Iranian ports on Monday to prevent the movement of oil to and from Iran after talks between US and Iranian negotiators failed to reach an agreement.

The strain is also hitting consumers at the petrol pump in the US. The American Automobile Association reports that the average price of gas is $4.125 per gallon (3.78 litres), compared with $3.63 at this time last month.

Meanwhile, shippers have adapted their routes, with more than 34,000 ships diverting from the strait over the past month.

The Containerized Freight Index, the benchmark for shipping container costs, jumped more than 10 percent over the last month, and is up more than 35 percent from this time last year, amid pressure on the market to find alternative shipping strategies.

In March, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd suspended vessel routes through the strait, a waterway connecting the Gulf of Oman and the Gulf.

Also in March, within days of the start of the US-Israel war on Iran, several major vessel insurers cancelled war risk coverage for ships travelling through the waterway, including Norwegian insurers Gard and Skuld, as well as the United Kingdom’s NorthStandard, dissuading ship owners from going through the Gulf.

Since then, even though maritime insurance has become available – at 10 times the price as before the war on Iran – fuel prices are expected to normalise only once traffic through the strait goes back to pre-war levels, experts have said.

Dismissed lawsuit follows Wall Street Journal’s report on a letter allegedly signed by Trump for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

A United States federal judge has dismissed US President Donald Trump’s $10bn defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch over a story on Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Miami-based ‌US District Judge Darrin Gayles said on Monday that Trump did not meet the “actual malice” standard that public figures must clear in defamation cases.

That means public figures must prove not only that a public statement about them was false, but also that the media outlet or person who made the statement ‌acted with reckless disregard for the truth or should have known that it was false.

“This complaint comes nowhere close to this standard,” Gayles wrote. “Quite the opposite.”

The judge noted that reporters from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reached out to Trump for comment beforehand and printed his denial. That allowed readers to decide for themselves what to conclude, cutting against Trump’s assertion that the newspaper acted with actual malice, the judge said.

Gayles said Trump could file an amended version of ⁠the lawsuit by April 27.

In ⁠his lawsuit, Trump called a birthday greeting that he allegedly sent to Epstein, a convicted sex offender, a “fake”. The US president sought $10bn for what he called damage to ‌his reputation. News Corp’s Dow Jones & Company, the WSJ’s parent company, defended the accuracy of its July ‌17, ‌2025 article.

Trump filed the lawsuit after promising to sue the paper almost immediately after it put a new spotlight on his well-documented relationship with Epstein by publishing an article that described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper said bore Trump’s signature and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

The letter was subsequently released publicly by the US Congress, which subpoenaed the records from Epstein’s estate.

The ruling marks yet another blow in the Trump administration’s efforts to manage fallout over its release of the Epstein files and the president’s attempts to use the legal system to curb reporting that he finds critical of him.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request by AP for comment.

Islamabad, Pakistan – More than 12 hours of face-to-face negotiations between the United States and Iran ended without agreement in Islamabad on Sunday, leaving a fragile two-week ceasefire as the only barrier between diplomacy and a return to war.

Pakistan, which spent weeks positioning itself as a mediator and succeeded in bringing both sides into the same room, emerged with its role intact. But officials acknowledge the harder phase now begins — getting American and Iranian negotiators back into talks before their differences explode into full-fledged war again.

“Pakistan has been and will continue to play its role to facilitate engagements and dialogue between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America in the days to come,” Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in a statement after the conclusion of the talks.

The talks, the highest-level direct engagement between Washington and Tehran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, faltered over differences surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme.

“The simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” said US Vice President JD Vance, who led the American delegation alongside special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

However, Vance left a narrow opening for the resumption of talks.

“We leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We’ll see if the Iranians accept it,” Vance said, tapping the podium for emphasis, before ending his brief remarks, which lasted for less than five minutes.

Pakistani and Iranian sources confirmed that the Iranian delegation met senior Pakistani officials later on Sunday before departing for Tehran, though details of those discussions remain unclear.

What is clear is that Pakistan isn’t giving up yet.

Washington’s red lines

US officials said that Iran had entered negotiations misreading its leverage, believing it held advantages that, in Washington’s assessment, it did not.

According to these officials, Vance spent much of his time during the talks correcting what they described as Iranian misperceptions about the US position — asserting that no deal would be possible without a full commitment on the nuclear issue.

Officials also suggested that Trump’s subsequent announcement of a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz was not an impulsive reaction, but a pre-planned step aimed at removing the waterway as an Iranian bargaining tool and forcing the nuclear issue back to the centre of any future talks.

But the US officials, speaking on background, also acknowledged that the gulf in the positions between Washington and Tehran that they failed to bridge extended to issues beyond Iran’s nuclear programme.

In essence, they said, the two sides failed to agree on six key points: ending all uranium enrichment; dismantling major enrichment facilities; removing Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium; accepting a broader regional security framework involving US allies; ending funding for groups Washington designates as “terrorist” organisations, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis; and fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz without tolls.

Hours after the talks ended, Trump acknowledged partial progress, but underscored the central impasse.

“The meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not,” he wrote on Truth Social.

“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said. “Iran will not be allowed to profit off this Illegal Act of EXTORTION.”

Iran has effectively controlled access to the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of global oil supplies pass, since the US-Israeli attacks began on February 28.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has imposed what analysts describe as a de facto toll system, requiring vessels to secure clearance codes and transit under escort through a controlled corridor.

The disruption has pushed oil prices above $100 per barrel at times, unsettling global markets and placing sustained pressure on energy-importing countries across Asia and Europe.

Tehran has framed its control of the strait as both a security measure and a key negotiating lever, one it has shown little willingness to relinquish without a broader settlement.

Tehran’s point of view

Iran’s account of the breakdown differed sharply.

In a post on X early on April 13, after returning to Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country had engaged in “good faith”, only to face shifting demands.

“When just inches away from an Islamabad MoU, we encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade,” he wrote. “Zero lessons learned. Good will begets good will. Enmity begets enmity.”

The reference to an “Islamabad MoU”, a memorandum of understanding, was the clearest public signal yet that the two sides had come closer to a formal agreement than either government had previously acknowledged.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the country’s delegation, said his team had proposed “forward-looking initiatives”, but failed to secure trust.

“Due to the experiences of the two previous wars, we have no trust in the opposing side,” he wrote on Sunday.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei also pointed to partial progress but unresolved differences.

“On some issues we actually reached mutual understanding, but there was a gap over two or three important issues and ultimately the talks didn’t result in an agreement,” he said.

Tehran’s key demands, including an end to Israeli strikes on Lebanon, the release of $6bn in frozen assets, guarantees on its nuclear programme and the right to charge vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, remained unmet.

Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, however, offered a more measured view — suggesting that Tehran was not closing the window on talks.

“The Islamabad Talks is not an event but a process,” he wrote in his message on X on Sunday. “The Islamabad Talks laid the foundation for a diplomatic process that, if trust and will are strengthened, can create a sustainable framework for the interests of all parties.”

Pakistan’s balancing act

For Pakistan, analysts say, the outcome represents a setback but not a failure.

Officials were careful to describe the talks as “an important opening step in a continuing diplomatic process”, stressing that issues of such complexity cannot be resolved in a single round.

The emphasis, they said, was on keeping the channel open.

Muhammad Obaidullah, a former Pakistan Navy commodore who has served in Iran as a diplomat, said expectations of a breakthrough were always unrealistic.

“The mere fact of bringing both parties face to face is a significant diplomatic achievement in itself,” he told Al Jazeera. “The diplomacy is not dead.”

Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor emeritus of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, went further.

“The talks did not collapse; they concluded without agreement but with a defined US offer on the table and the channel still intact,” he said.

“Pakistan’s role was to move the crisis from escalation to structured engagement, which it achieved. The absence of convergence reflects structural differences between the US and Iran, not a failure of mediation.”

Both Trump and Iranian officials have praised Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir for their efforts to secure the ceasefire, and for hosting the talks in Islamabad. That, say analysts, suggests that they remain open to further Pakistan-brokered negotiations.

Sahar Baloch, a Germany-based scholar of Iran, said that trust remains Pakistan’s most valuable asset.

“The real test of credibility is not preventing breakdowns, but remaining relevant after them,” she said.

Fragile ceasefire

The immediate threat to Pakistan’s role comes from the evolving situation in the Strait of Hormuz and in Lebanon.

Iran has already warned that continued Israeli strikes on Lebanon could render negotiations meaningless. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has framed such attacks as a direct challenge to the ceasefire.

Trump’s blockade announcement now adds pressure from a second front.

Ahmad, a former Pakistan chair at Oxford University, warned that a collapse of the truce would sharply narrow diplomatic options.

“If the ceasefire collapses, the immediate consequence is the loss of the diplomatic window,” he said. “A second round becomes far more difficult because both sides would return to negotiating under active escalation, where positions tend to harden rather than converge.”

Obaidullah drew a historical parallel with the US naval quarantine of Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis. What if China were to use its own ships to import Iranian oil? Would the US attack them?

“The world will again be watching who blinks first,” Obaidullah said. “However, it may turn into a far greater conflict if neither side does.”

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war, after Washington discovered Moscow had installed nuclear missiles on Cuban soil, within striking distance of the American mainland.

The US blocked the Soviets from providing more equipment to Cuba, and eventually, a diplomatic settlement was reached, with the Soviets agreeing to withdraw the missiles in exchange for a US pledge not to invade Cuba.

Baloch, the Berlin-based scholar, agreed that the situation remains volatile.

“The ceasefire risks becoming more symbolic than substantive,” she said. “But paradoxically, escalation can sometimes force a return to talks, even if under more urgent and less favourable conditions.”

What is the road ahead?

Pakistan’s room for manoeuvring is also shaped by its economic fragility.

The disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has driven up energy prices, compounding pressures on an economy already under strain before the conflict.

Ahmad said this creates both urgency and limits.

“Economic exposure, especially to energy shocks and external financing, creates urgency for Pakistan to prevent a prolonged conflict,” he said.

“But it also reinforces a constraint: Pakistan cannot afford escalation with either side. Its leverage is not coercive; it is positional. It comes from being the only channel acceptable to both sides, not from the ability to impose outcomes,” Ahmad said.

Eight days remain until the end of the initial two-week truce, a window Pakistani officials said privately represents a genuine opportunity for further technical and political alignment, if both sides choose to use it.

Ahmad suggested that any breakthrough would depend on creating a sequence of steps acceptable to both sides.

“The US is asking for early nuclear commitments; Iran is asking for guarantees and relief first,” he said.

Pakistan’s role, he added, would be to help “structure this sequencing, keep both sides engaged, and prevent breakdown at each stage”.

Islamabad won’t be the one drafting a deal itself, he emphasised, noting, “At this point, maintaining the channel is as important as the substance of the deal itself.”

April 13 (UPI) — The U.S. military said it will begin blocking all ships from leaving or entering Iran’s ports on Monday morning in line with a maritime blockade ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump to cut off Iranian oil exports.

U.S. Central Command said in a news release Sunday that the blockade would be enforced equitably against vessels of all nations sailing to or from Iranian ports, including all those on the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, but stressed vessels serving ports in neighboring countries would be left alone.

“CENTCOM forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports,” said the news release, which instructs the masters of all ships to monitor “Notice to Mariners” broadcasts and make radio contact with U.S. naval forces on bridge-to-bridge channels in Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz approaches.

The blockade would effectively cut off Iran’s international trade by preventing it from importing or exporting anything by sea, in particular its energy exports on which it is reliant for hard currency.

Further details would be communicated in a formal notice that would be provided to commercial ships and operators prior to the start of the blockade, due to come into force at 10 a.m. EDT, CENTCOM said.

The statement clarified comments by Trump early Sunday in which he appeared to announce a total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in response to the failure of peace talks in Pakistan at the weekend.

Trump had said the U.S. Navy “will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.”

On Saturday, CENTCOM announced that the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers USS Frank E. Peterson USS Michael Murphy had transited the Strait of Hormuz and operated in the Persian Gulf, preparatory to clearing Iranian mines and reopening the shipping route to commercial vessels.

Tehran responded to the development with unspecified threats against the ports of its neighbors and raised the specter of widening the conflict to the Red Sea, the other sea passage in the region that is critical to the global economy.

“Security in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman is either for everyone or for NO ONE. If Iran’s ports are threatened, NO PORT in the region will be safe,” the Iranian military’s central command said in a statement carried by state-run broadcaster IRIB.

“Naval blockade of Iran? Bab al-mandeb Coming soon?!,” IRIB said earlier in a post referencing the narrow strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, which leads to the Suez Canal, where Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked around 100 commercial ships November 2023 through September 2025.

Oil prices rose in response to the developments while stock markets retreated.

The benchmark Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate both climbed back above $100 a barrel with the Brent contract for June delivery changing hands at $102.31 per barrel in mid-morning trade in London while the WTI contract for May was trading at $104.44.

The FTSE 100 in London was down 0.33%, the DAX in Frankfurt fell almost 1.2% and France’s CAC 40 was off by almost 1%.

Former U.S. special envoy to the region David Satterfield expressed concerns over the blockade, warning that if shipping continued to be affected current supply disruption would widen beyond oil, with serious implications for Gulf countries’ exports of many other critical materials from aluminum and helium to polymers and fertilizer feed stocks.

“The Gulf is a critical global supply point, far beyond hydrocarbons — and the impact if this goes on for several more weeks is going to become quite profound, beyond just the cost of petrol and diesel at the pump,” Satterfield told the BBC.

April 13 (UPI) — President Donald Trump lashed out at Pope LeoXIV over his criticism of the war in Iran, claiming a reason the American was named pontiff was because the Church was trying to curry favor with his administration.

Since being elected the first American head of the Catholic Church in May, Pope Leo has criticized the Trump administration’s policies, particularly its aggressive immigration crackdown and military campaigns. As the war in Iran has continued, the Chicago native has ramped up his criticism of the New York real estate mogul and his administration.

Seemingly in response, Trump on Sunday called the pope “WEAK on Crime and Terrible for Foreign Policy.”

“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump,” Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social platform. “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”

Amid the conflict, Pope Leo has repeatedly called for an end to the war in Iran and other conflicts, most often without mentioning the warring parties or their leaders by name.

In seemingly pointed remarks in late March, the pope said God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” Then early this month, the pontiff, speaking in Italian, described Trump’s threat to destroy “the whole Iranian civilization,” as “truly unacceptable!”

In his late Sunday statement, Trump said he preferred Leo’s eldest brother Louis Prevost, a noted supporter of the president’s far-right nationalist Make America Again movement.

“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left and focus on being a Great Pope, not a politician,” Trump said.

“It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!”

Catholic Americans constituted a major electoral bloc in Trump’s 2024 election victory. According to the Pew Research Center, about 55% of Catholic voters cast ballots for Trump compared to 43% for his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Kamala Harris.

The statement comes as pressure mounts on Trump over the war in Iran, which was launched jointly with Israel on Feb. 28. During the current two-week cease-fire, U.S. efforts to secure a permanent end to the war are ongoing as calls from Democrats and critics for his ouster grow louder.

“The deranged and disgusting post from Trump attacking Pope Leo should certainly help him appeal to the more than 50 million Americans who identify as Catholics. Perhaps this will convince JD Vance to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said in a statement referring to the vice president, who is Catholic, and his ability to invoke a constitutional mechanism that could lead to Trump’s removal from the White House.

Leo, ​who last year became the first US-born pope, has emerged as an outspoken critic of the US-Israeli ⁠war on Iran.

United States President Donald Trump has unleashed a storm of criticism at Pope Leo XIV, calling him “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy”.

Trump delivered the unusual criticism of the head of the Catholic Church in a Sunday night post on social media, saying he does not “want a Pope who criticises the President of the United States”.

Trump’s outburst appeared to be triggered by recent remarks from Pope Leo critical of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Last week, Leo issued a rare direct rebuke of Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilisation, calling it “truly unacceptable“. And then, on Sunday, the 70-year-old pontiff implored leaders to end ongoing bloodshed, condemning what he described as a “delusion of omnipotence” fuelling war – comments that appeared directed at Trump.

The pope has also previously questioned the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies, saying, “I don’t know if that’s ⁠pro-life.”

Taking to Truth Social, Trump wrote: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela.”

“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician,” said the US president.

Trump also claimed credit for Leo’s leadership in the Catholic Church, suggesting the Vatican picked the first US-born pontiff – elected last year – to curry favour with the White House. “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” Trump said.

Asked about the comments later on Sunday, Trump reiterated that he is “not a big fan” of Leo, who he said “is not doing a very good job”.

“He likes crime, I guess,” said Trump. “He’s a very liberal person.”

Trump also had a rocky relationship with Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, who criticised Trump’s ‌immigration ‌policy proposals when he first ran for president and suggested Trump was “not a Christian“. Trump had called Francis “disgraceful” in early 2016.

Leo is set to begin an 11-day trip to Africa on Monday, starting with a historic visit to Muslim-majority Algeria.

In a record turnout at the polls, Hungarians have voted out their long-serving, far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban, handing victory to the Tisza party’s Peter Magyar who ran a pro-EU campaign.

April 12 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has dismissed all six members of the Presidio Trust board, removing the leadership of the federal entity that manages San Francisco’s Presidio.

Trump previously targeted the Presidio Trust in a February 2025 executive order that described the agency as an “unnecessary governmental entity” and called for it to be reduced.

The trustees, who were appointed during the Biden administration, were notified of their removal this week, Lisa Petrie, spokeswoman for the Presidio Trust, said.

Chairman Mark Buell told The San Francisco Standard that the White House sent him a short email saying the termination was “effective immediately.”

“I was surprised that this didn’t happen sooner,” he said.

The other board members include Charles M. Collins, Lenore Eccles, Patsy Ishiyama, Bonnie LePard and Nicola Miner.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi helped create the trust, established in 1996 to rehabilitate the former Army post after it closed. The national park is in her district.

The Trump administration has been reshaping the federal bureaucracy and has fired numerous government workers.

The Presidio, now a national park near the Golden Gate Bridge, includes museums, campgrounds, trails, hotels and a golf course.

Vessels will still be able to transit Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports, says CENTCOM; Iran warns any approaching military vessels will be breaching ceasefire.

The United States military has announced it will begin blockading all Iranian ports on Monday, its latest move to exert pressure on Tehran after marathon peace talks in Pakistan concluded without a deal.

In a statement on Sunday evening, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the blockade would apply to “all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports” from 10am Eastern Time (14:00 GMT) on April 13. That includes “vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas”, including those on the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

However, US forces “will not impede freedom of ⁠navigation for vessels transiting the Strait ⁠of Hormuz to and ⁠from non-Iranian ports,” CENTCOM said, in an apparent scaling back from President Donald Trump’s earlier threat to blockade the entire strait and pursue ships paying tolls to Iran.

“There are a lot of questions here,” said Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro from Washington, DC, pointing to “conflicting information” coming out of the US side.

“Trump said the blockade would target any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz. But CENTCOM is saying this would only target ships going to or from Iranian ports.”

The price of US crude oil jumped 8 percent to $104.24 a barrel after the US blockade threat. Brent crude oil, the international standard, increased 7 percent to $102.29.

Iran has essentially taken control over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for the global energy market, since the US and Israel launched a war against the country on February 28. Traffic through the waterway has since slowed to a trickle, nearly paralysing about one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.

Iran has continued to move its own vessels through the strait, while allowing limited passage of ships from other countries. Iranian officials have discussed setting up a toll system after the fighting ends.

In a statement responding to Trump’s blockade threat, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said any approaching military vessels would be in breach of a US-Iran ceasefire – meant to be in effect until April 22 – and “will be dealt with severely”.

The US-declared blockade appears to be triggered by the failure of the talks in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, raising fears of renewed fighting.

Iranian officials blamed the US side for failing to reach a deal, with Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi saying US negotiators shifted the “goalposts” and obstructed efforts when a memorandum of understanding was “just inches away”.

Zohreh Kharazmi, an associate professor at the University of Tehran, said the US “is not in a position to dictate” to Iranians how to behave, or “to choose which vessels may pass”.

“If this blockade becomes a contest between the resilience of the Islamic Republic and the resilience of global markets, it will not take long to see who is losing,” she said, adding that Iran “is ready for a prolonged war”.

“Technically, they [the US] cannot control the situation. With Hollywood-style strategies, they cannot prevail in this battleground.”

April 12 (UPI) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is projected to lose his re-election effort, with more than half the ballots counted, and has already conceded after 16 years in the position.

Peter Magyar and his Tisza party are projected to win a super-majority in Hungary’s parliament, taking 135 of 199 seats, and ending Orban’s long-time rule of the country, NBC News and The Washington Post reported.

Orban, who is an ally of both U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, spent his four terms as prime minister cracking down on courts and the media amid alleged corruption and illiberal rule of the country.

Magyar posted on Facebook that Orban called to congratulate the Tisza party leaders for their victory after what has been reported as a historic election that brought out nearly 80% of registered voters.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

April 12 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Sunday said the U.S. Navy will block the Strait of Hormuz to cut off Iran’s shipping lanes after peace talks in Pakistan failed to produce a deal.

Vice President J.D. Vance, who Trump sent to negotiate a deal to end the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, said Saturday that the talks were not successful because the two sides cannot agree on what to do about the Iranian nuclear stockpile and who will control the Strait, CNN and The Washington Post reported.

Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that the United States was going to block the Strait — it will “take a little while, but it’ll be effective pretty soon,” he said — and that nations in the Gulf region have agreed to help in the effort.

The blockade, he said, will prevent “any and all ships” from entering or leaving the the waterway, including vessels belonging to Iran, which have been shipping its oil to other countries and reportedly been bringing weapons parts from China to the Middle Eastern nation.

Vance told reporters early Sunday morning that while Iran had not yet accepted the United States’ “final and best offer,” he expressed optimism that a deal can be reached.

“We just could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms,” Vance said. “I think that we were quite flexible.”

In a post on X, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is Iran’s leading negotiator in the talks, said that he and his colleagues had “raised forward looking initiatives, but the opposing side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations.”

“Before the negotiations, I emphasized that we have the necessary good faith and will, but due to the experiences of the two previous wars, we have no trust in the opposing side,” he said.

US President Donald Trump says ‘we win regardless of what happens’ in Iran talks. His comments outside the White House came as US and Iranian delegations continue negotiating late into the night in Islamabad.

April 11 (UPI) — After an about-face by the Trump administration, Britain said it is pausing a plan to transfer ownership of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius because it cannot complete the deal without U.S. support.

Britain on Friday said it is abandoning a deal to return sovereignty to the islands, which would have permitted the both countries to continue using the military base in Deigo Garcia they have operated since the 1970s, because there is not enough time for the U.K.’s parliament to pass a legislation on it, The Guardian reported.

The islands have been controlled by Britain since the 1800s, though in 1968 it granted independence to Maritius — which it also had controlled — but kept possession of the Chagos Islands.

President Donald Trump had in 2024 offered support for Britain to return the islands in return for continued use of the base, which includes billions in annual payments for doing so.

Trump withdrew his support for the deal earlier this year, calling it a “great act of stupidity,” less than a year after Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump administration called the deal an “historic” achievement, at least partially because it kept the Diego Garcia base in use.

The change in opinion came, however, weeks before the United States and Israel started the war in Iran at the end of February because, he said at the time, the U.S. military may need to use the Diego Garcia base, The Hill reported.

“The U.K. had two objectives, one was to comply with international law, the second was to reinforce the relationship with the United States,” Simon McDonald, a former permanent secretary in Britain’s Foreign Office.

“When the president of the United States is openly hostile, the government has to rethink, so this agreement, this treaty, will go into the deep freeze for the time being,” McDonald said.

The deal to return the islands to Maritius stems from an overall effort by Britain to reckon with its colonialist history, as well as a 2019 international court decision that said it had acted illegally by separating the Chagos from Maritius in the 1960s.

The military base on Diego Garcia, which dates to a 1966 treaty between Britain and the United States — which the two countries cleared people living in the area from in order to construct it — was to give the two nations a 99-year lease to continue operating the base.

While the Trump initially supported the deal, it has long been controversial in Britain, with Kemi Badenoch, leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, said it took too long for the current U.K. government to give up on it.

Badenoch said the government had dragged its feet on dropping the deal, calling it a “damning indictment of a prime minister, who fought to hand over British sovereign territory and pay $47 million to use a crucial military base which was already ours.”

April 11 (UPI) — Talks between the United States and Iran began Saturday morning between the two delegations in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Vice President JD Vance arrived at 10:30 a.m. PKT. At Nur Khan air base, Vance walked down a red carpet and met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Sharif said Friday that the United States is at a “make or break” moment in a national address Friday.

It’s not clear if the talks are direct or indirect, but CNN reported the talks are a mixture of both.

Though there was heavy security, with road closures and checkpoints, the mood in Pakistan was jubilant, The Washington Post reported.

Both sides have repeatedly accused the other of violating the fragile cease-fire that began last week. The United States has said Iran is violating the agreement because the Strait of Hormuz is not open. Only two ships passed through it on Friday, The New York Times reported. Iran is angry that Israel continues to attack Lebanon, though Israel and the United States say they never agreed to stop fighting in Lebanon.

Israel has hit more than 200 targets in Lebanon affiliated with Hezbollah in the past 24 hours, The Times reported the Israeli military said.

Iran can’t find all the mines it set in the strait, The Times reported that U.S. officials said Friday, causing a snarl in Iran’s ability to comply with American demands.

Saturday morning, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the United States is “clearing out” the strait.

“We’re now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to Countries all over the World, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, and many others. Incredibly, they don’t have the Courage or Will to do this work themselves. Very interestingly, however, empty Oil carrying ships from many Nations are all heading to the United States of America to LOAD UP with Oil.”

He didn’t clarify what “clearing out” of the strait means.

On Friday, he said that Iranians must negotiate.

“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

The U.S. delegation includes envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Iranian side has more than a dozen senior officials, including Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, along with senior security officials and Iran’s central bank governor, The Post reported.

Both sides seem motivated to see the war come to an end, but they remain at odds on several issues. Control of the Strait of Hormuz, war reparations, Iran’s enriched uranium and withdrawal of the U.S. military in the region are some of the sticking points.

April 11 (UPI) — A panel of judges said Saturday it will allow construction on the White House ballroom to continue for now.

The panel of three judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit told the lower court judge who halted the project to seek more information about the national security risk that President Donald Trump claims the pause in construction causes.

In an earlier filing, the Trump administration said that stopping construction “would imperil the President and national security, and indefinitely leave a large hole beside the executive residence.”

The planned construction includes bomb shelters, a hospital, medical area and other “top secret military installations, structures and equipment,” the administration said.

Construction of the 90,000-square-foot building began with the demolition of the East Wing of the White House in October. The new building was to cost $200 million, but the ballroom’s price tag has since doubled. Trump said it will be financed by private donors.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon for the District of Columbia halted the work on April 1.

“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” Leon said in his opinion.

The appeals court said work on the project can continue until at least April 17.

“It remains unclear whether and to what extent the development of certain aspects of the proposed ballroom is necessary to ensure the safety and security of those below-ground national security upgrades or otherwise to ensure the safety of the White House and its occupants while the appeal proceeds,” the judges in the majority wrote.

The judges, Patricia Ann Millett, Bradley Garcia and Neomi Rao, were not unanimous. Rao dissented, arguing that the National Trust for Historic Preservation lacked standing to sue.

Trump has also said that the military was building a “massive complex” under the ballroom, but he hasn’t released any details.

The National Trust told the appeals court that Trump was confusing the above-ground ballroom with the below-ground bunker.

“As is obvious, the absence of a massive ballroom on White House grounds has not stopped this (or any other) President from residing at the White House or hosting events there,” the lawyers said in a filing. “Temporarily halting the ballroom project until it complies with the law will not irreparably harm defendants or the nation.”

Justice Department lawyers had asked the court to shelve Leon’s ruling.

“The upgrades to the East Wing are not cosmetic; instead, they involve the use of missile-resistant steel columns, beams, drone-proof roofing materials, and bullet-, ballistic- and blast-proof glass windows,” they said in a filing. “They also include the installation of bomb shelters, hospital and medical facilities, protective partitioning and top-secret military installations, air conditioning, heating, venting and more.”

On April 2, The National Capital Planning Commission voted Thursday to approve Trump’s plans for the White House ballroom. Though, that vote doesn’t override the court’s rulings.

April 10 (UPI) — The government of Brazil on Friday announced an agreement with the United States to combat transnational crime — a move that will integrate intelligence sharing and joint operations to target organized criminal networks.

The initiative was presented by Brazil’s finance ministry, where Minister Darío Durigan said the agreement between Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection will enable the exchange of cargo data, particularly on shipments leaving the United States for Brazil.

The focus will be on intercepting illegal goods, such as weapons and narcotics.

The announcement comes as Washington considers designating Brazil-based criminal groups Primeiro Comando da Capital and Comando Vermelho as terrorist organizations, according to outlet G1 O’Globo.

The effort gained traction after Eduardo Bolsonaro and Flávio Bolsonaro, sons of former President Jair Bolsonaro, urged members of the administration of Donald Trump to take action, The New York Times reported. U.S. officials have not publicly confirmed any such designation.

Brazilian authorities also highlighted the rollout of the DESARMA program, a system designed to allow real-time information sharing when customs officials identify shipments linked to firearms, ammunition, explosives and other sensitive materials.

Officials said the tool enables authorities to trace the origin of illicit goods and map criminal networks involved in the international arms trade.

Recent records show the system has expanded the ability to detect, connect and track illicit weapons flows, with early results already benefiting both countries.

U.S.-provided intelligence has helped uncover sophisticated smuggling methods, including rifle components hidden inside airsoft equipment and drugs concealed in packages labeled as common goods such as pet food sent through postal services.

Over the past 12 months, authorities identified 35 incidents involving the seizure of 1,168 items, weighing about 550 kilograms, primarily shipped from Florida using fraudulent declarations and concealment techniques.

Brazil’s tax revenue secretary, ​Robinson Barreirinhas, said ‌more than 1,100 weapons ​were seized ​over the past 12 ⁠months arriving from ​the United States, ​and that in the first quarter alone, authorities ​have seized more ​than 1.5 tons of ‌drugs.

Brazil’s finance ministry said consolidating this data into a structured database has improved identification of patterns, links between senders and recipients, and recurring trafficking routes. This, in turn, has strengthened information-sharing with U.S. authorities to support enforcement action at the source and dismantle criminal networks.

The ministry added that the cooperation is part of ongoing dialogue between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Trump, and forms part of a broader bilateral agenda focused on combating transnational organized crime.

April 10 (UPI) — President Donald Trump‘s tariffs are back in court Friday to decide on their legality.

The U.S. Court of International Trade will consider the president’s 10% global tariff that he created on Feb. 20 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his previous tariffs over his use of emergency powers. The new tariffs are based on Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.

That law allows the president to unilaterally surcharge imports up to 15% for up to 150 days “to deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits.”

Challenging the new levies are Democratic-led states and small businesses.

“This is another case where the president invokes a statute to impose whatever tariffs he wants, its limits be damned,” the states wrote in court filings.

Timothy C. Brightbill, a trade lawyer for the Washington law firm Wiley Rein, told The New York Times that he expects the court to be “skeptical of President Trump’s ability to impose broad tariffs,” including the global 10% rate.

Brightbill said it could be months before the legal system can give a full verdict.

“By then, there will most likely be a new tariff regime in place,” Brightbill said.

The White House said in a statement that Trump was “lawfully using the executive powers granted to him” and the administration was “committed to robustly defending the legality of the president’s actions in court.”

“For over a century, Congress has supplemented the president’s constitutional power over foreign affairs and national security by delegating to him the authority to manage foreign trade in response to international conditions, including by imposing tariffs,” the administration said.

But critics say Trump’s position only includes the U.S trade deficit. They argue that the president is ignoring inflows of foreign capital and financial investment. Those help “balance” the deficit.

They argue that a balance-of-payments crisis is impossible because the United States stopped using the gold standard and a fixed exchange rate system in the 1970s.

“A balance-of-payments crisis is a currency crisis that was of great concern when Congress enacted Section 122, but which can no longer exist,” the states wrote in court filings.

There are 24 states in the suit, along with two small businesses: spice and e-commerce business Burlap & Barrel and Basic Fun!, a toy company that designs and markets Tonka, Lincoln Logs, K’nex and others. They filed separate suits against the tariffs, but the cases will be heard together.

“When these tariffs were first announced last April, we made two promises: we would not raise our prices, and we would not ask our partner farmers to absorb the costs,” Burlap & Barrel wrote on its website. “A year later, we’re proud to say we’ve kept those promises. This lawsuit is about protecting our ability to continue doing that.”

The plaintiffs are represented by the Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian firm that worked on the tariff case that the administration lost at the Supreme Court. The three-judge panel is made up of different judges from the previous panel at the Court of International Trade.

Islamabad, Pakistan – With key differences in the Iranian and American positions seemingly intact, Pakistan is aiming for what officials describe as a realistic – if modest – outcome from the negotiations between the two warring nations set to commence in Islamabad on Saturday.

The aim: to get the United States and Iranian negotiators to find enough common ground to continue talks.

On Friday, US Vice President JD Vance left Washington for Islamabad, where he will lead the American team, which will also consist of President Donald Trump’s chief negotiator Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. While Iran has not formally confirmed its representatives at the talks, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf are expected to lead Tehran’s team.

These high-level talks follow days after the US and Iran agreed to a Pakistan-mediated two-week ceasefire, and will be held exactly six weeks after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran with the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28.

Experts and sources close to the mediation effort said there was little expectation that a major breakthrough would be reached on Saturday. But by setting a more realistic ceiling – an agreement in Islamabad to continue deeper negotiations aimed at finding a lasting peace deal – Pakistan is hopeful it can help build on a truce that led to a collective sigh of relief globally.

“Pakistan has succeeded in getting them together. We got them to sit at a table. Now it is for the parties to decide whether they are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to reach an eventual solution,” Zamir Akram, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United Nations, told Al Jazeera.

Now, he added, it will aim to secure an agreement for the US and Iran to continue dialogue.

The ‘proximity format’

The US and Iranian delegations will land at the Nur Khan airbase outside Islamabad and then drive to the Serena Hotel, where they will stay, and where the talks will be held.

Though the two teams will be in the same hotel, they will not come face to face for the negotiations, officials said.

Instead, they will sit in two separate rooms, with Pakistani officials shuttling messages between them.

In diplomatic jargon, such negotiations are known as proximity talks.

Pakistan’s experience with such a dialogue is not new. In 1988, Islamabad itself participated in the Geneva Accords negotiations on the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, where UN-mediated indirect talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan produced a landmark agreement.

Akram, who has represented Pakistan at the UN in Geneva from 2008 to 2015, said that history was relevant.

“Proximity talks have been used before. Pakistan itself participated in one in Geneva in 1988 on the Afghan issue,” he told Al Jazeera. “If the parties did not trust Pakistan, they would not be here. The metric of success should be an agreement to continue this process in search of a solution. It will not happen in a couple of days.”

Building diplomatic momentum

In the days between the ceasefire announcement on April 7 and the arrival of the delegations in Islamabad, world leaders moved quickly to register support.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the ceasefire and expressed appreciation for Pakistan’s role. Kazakhstan, Romania and the United Kingdom also issued statements endorsing Islamabad’s mediation.

French President Emmanuel Macron called Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to congratulate him, while Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also spoke to the Pakistani leader.

Analysts say these calls were not only expressions of goodwill but signals of international backing, aimed at strengthening Pakistan’s hand in pushing both Washington and Tehran to deliver results.

Sharif spoke with eight world leaders, including the emir of Qatar, the presidents of France and Turkiye, the prime ministers of Italy and Lebanon, the king of Bahrain and the chancellors of Germany and Austria.

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who is also deputy prime minister, engaged with more than a dozen counterparts over the past two days and held an in-person meeting with China’s ambassador in Islamabad.

In total, Pakistan’s leadership made or received more than 25 diplomatic contacts in roughly 48 hours.

Salma Malik, a professor of strategic studies at Quaid-i-Azam University, said the scale of engagement reflected confidence in Pakistan’s role.

“The two main parties showed confidence in Pakistan to act as a neutral agent, that is the first and most critical litmus test for any mediating country, and Pakistan passed it,” she told Al Jazeera.

The Lebanon problem

The most immediate threat to Saturday’s talks lies outside the negotiating room.

Iran has framed Israeli strikes on Lebanon as a direct challenge to the ceasefire. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who spoke to Sharif earlier this week, warned that continued attacks would render negotiations meaningless.

Hours after the ceasefire was announced, Israel launched its most widespread bombardment of Lebanon since the start of the conflict, killing more than 300 people across Beirut and southern Lebanon in a single day.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran could abandon the ceasefire entirely if the strikes continued.

Sharif, in a call with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on April 9, strongly condemned Israel’s actions.

Whether Lebanon is covered by the ceasefire remains contested. Pakistan has maintained that the truce extends across the wider region, including Lebanon, as reflected in Sharif’s statement earlier this week.

Washington has taken a different view. US Vice President JD Vance, who will lead the American delegation, said in Budapest that Lebanon falls outside the ceasefire’s terms, a position echoed by President Donald Trump and the White House.

Seema Baloch, a former Pakistani envoy, said the issue ultimately rests with Washington.

“Lebanon is key and Israel will use it to play the spoiler role,” she told Al Jazeera. “It is now the US decision whether it will allow Israel, which is not seated at the negotiating table, to play that role.”

There are, however, signs of limited de-escalation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel was ready to begin direct negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible”, focusing on disarming Hezbollah and reaching a peace agreement.

The announcement followed US pressure. Trump told NBC he had asked Netanyahu to “low-key it” on Lebanon.

However, Netanyahu made clear there was no ceasefire in Lebanon, saying Israel would continue striking Hezbollah even as talks proceed.

Salman Bashir, a former Pakistani foreign secretary, said Lebanon remains within the ceasefire’s scope.

“Lebanon is very much part of the ceasefire, as was mentioned in the prime minister’s statement,” he told Al Jazeera. “The Israelis may be inclined to keep the pressure on Lebanon, but not for long if the US is keen on a cessation of hostilities, as it seems.”

Stumbling blocks

Beyond Lebanon, several other obstacles remain.

Washington is expected to push for verifiable restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme, including limits on enrichment and the removal of stockpiled material.

Tehran, in turn, is demanding full sanctions relief, formal recognition of its right to enrich uranium and compensation for wartime damage.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes in peacetime, remains a key pressure point, with Iran retaining the ability to disrupt maritime traffic.

Bashir said there could be movement on some of these issues.

“There may be an opening on the Strait of Hormuz, under Iranian control. Iran will not give up on the right to enrichment. If nothing else, there should be an extension of the ceasefire deadline,” he told Al Jazeera.

Muhammad Shoaib, a professor of international relations in Islamabad, said progress would depend on movement on core issues.

“Both parties agreeing on the need to continue or even extend the ceasefire, while in principle agreeing on crucial points such as the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s right to enrichment and respect for sovereignty, will suggest that the first round is meaningful and successful,” he told Al Jazeera.

The regional atmosphere has also been shaped by sharp rhetoric from some of Iran’s Gulf neighbours.

The United Arab Emirates, which faced hundreds of missile and drone attacks during the conflict, has been among the most vocal.

Its ambassador to Washington wrote in The Wall Street Journal that a ceasefire alone would not be sufficient and called for a comprehensive outcome addressing Iran’s “full range of threats”.

Bahrain, meanwhile, presented a United Nations Security Council resolution on April 7 calling for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The measure received 11 votes in favour but was vetoed by Russia and China, with Pakistan and Colombia abstaining.

Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt are not expected to have a formal presence at the talks, despite being closely involved in pre-negotiation diplomacy. The four countries held meetings in Riyadh and later in Islamabad aimed at securing a pause in hostilities.

Israel, a party to the conflict, will also not be represented. Pakistan, like most Muslim-majority countries, does not recognise Israel and has no diplomatic relations with it.

A slight easing

There are, however, tentative signs of easing tensions ahead of Saturday’s talks.

On Friday, as he was departing from Washington, Vance said that the US team was “looking forward to the negotiations”.

“We think it’s going to be positive. We’ll, of course, see. As the president of the United States said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we are certainly willing to extend an open hand,” the US vice president said. “If they try to play us, they’re going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive. So we’ll try to have a positive negotiation.”

He also said that Trump had given the US team “some pretty clear guidelines”.

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister spoke with his Iranian counterpart for the first time since the war started.

And Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said on April 8 that discussions could continue for up to 15 days, suggesting readiness for a prolonged process.

Akram, the former envoy, said the benchmark for success was clear.

“What they need to agree is that they will find a solution, and that in itself would be a step in the right direction,” he told Al Jazeera. “Finding a long-term solution will take time. It will not happen in a couple of days.”

Malik, the academic in Islamabad, said Pakistan’s expectations remained modest.

“What Pakistan expects is breathing space, an opportunity for peace. It is not expecting anything big. It is a small wish, but realising it will be very difficult,” she told Al Jazeera.

Donald Trump is accustomed to criticism from coast to coast — Democrats, disaffected Republicans, late-night comedians, massive protests. Yet in his second presidency, Trump’s most influential American critic doesn’t live in the country but at the Vatican.

It’s an unprecedented situation, with the first American pope directly assailing the American president over the war in Iran, where a fragile ceasefire took hold this week. The announcement came after Pope Leo XIV declared that Trump’s belligerence was “truly unacceptable.”

Never before has the relationship between Washington and the Vatican revolved around two Americans — specifically, a 79-year-old politician from Queens and a 70-year-old pontiff from Chicago. They come from the same generation and share some common cultural roots yet bring jarringly distinct approaches to their positions of vast power. And the relationship comes with risks for both sides.

“They’re two white guy boomers but they could not be any more different in their life experiences, in their values, in the way they have chosen to live those values,” said theology professor Natalia Imperatori-Lee of Fordham University. “This is a very stark contrast, and I think an inflection point for American Christianity.”

Polar positions on Iran among U.S. Christians

Experts on the Catholic Church emphasized that Leo’s opposition to the war reflects established church teachings, not the reflexive politics of the moment.

“For the last five centuries, the church has been involved in a project of helping develop strong international norms,” including the Geneva Conventions in recent centuries, said Catholic University professor William Barbieri. “It is a very long-standing tradition rooted in Scripture and theology and philosophy.”

Yet the U.S. administration, which has close ties to conservative evangelical Protestant leaders, has claimed heavenly endorsement for Trump’s war on Iran.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth urged Americans to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.” When Trump was asked whether he thought God approved of the war, he said, “I do, because God is good — because God is good and God wants to see people taken care of.”

The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of iconic Baptist evangelist Billy Graham, said of Trump that God “raised him up for such a time as this.” And Graham prayed for victory so Iranians can “be set free from these Islamic lunatics.”

Leo countered in his Palm Sunday message that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” He referenced an Old Testament passage from Isaiah, saying that “even though you make many prayers, I will not listen — your hands are full of blood.”

While it’s not unusual for popes and presidents to be at cross purposes, it’s exceedingly rare for the leader of the Catholic Church to directly criticize a U.S. leader, and Leo later named Trump directly and expressed optimism that the president would seek “an off-ramp” in Iran.

An even stronger condemnation came after Trump warned of mass strikes against Iranian power plants and infrastructure, writing on social media that “an entire civilization will die tonight.” Leo described that as a “threat against the entire people of Iran” and said it was “truly unacceptable.”

Experts: Leo doesn’t see himself as a Trump rival

Imperatori-Lee said Leo’s direct criticism stands out from the church’s more general critiques of political and social systems. For example, Pope Francis urged U.S. bishops to defend migrants without specifically mentioning Trump or his deportation agenda. Leo also previously called for humane treatment of migrants.

“Popes have critiqued unfettered capitalism before, very robustly. The popes have critiqued the Industrial Revolution, right? Things that the U.S. has been at the forefront of,” Imperatori-Lee said, “but it’s never been this specific and localized.”

She said Leo’s commentary resonates in the U.S. — with Catholics and non-Catholics — because he is a native English speaker.

“There’s no question about his inflection and meaning,” she said. “It removes any ambiguities.”

Trump welcomed Leo’s election last May as a “great honor” for the country, and he hasn’t responded to the latest criticisms. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

“What Pope Leo and Donald Trump have in common is they both lived through the post-war polarization,” including the political upheaval of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War, said Steven Millies, a professor at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union, one of the pope’s alma maters.

He noted that Leo is a subscriber to The New York Times, plays the “Wordle” game, keeps up with U.S. sports and talks regularly with his brothers, including an avowed Trump supporter.

“In some ways he’s just like us,” Millies said, someone “who understands where our domestic political crisis came from,” unlike the Argentinian Francis, “who did not fully understand the peculiarities of the United States” even as he offered implicit criticism.

Barbieri said Leo’s American savvy still does not change an underappreciated reality of Catholicism and the papacy. “The Catholic Church doesn’t neatly fit into either right or left boxes as they’re understood in U.S. politics,” he said.

Leo’s global focus vs. Trump’s ‘transactional’ politics

Leo spent much of his pre-papal ministry, including all his time as a bishop and cardinal, outside the U.S.

He was educated in Rome as a canon lawyer within the church. He was a bishop in poor, rural swaths of Peru. He led the Augustinian order and served as Francis’ prefect for recommending bishop appointees around the world.

Imperatori-Lee said that global reach gave him a first-hand perspective on how Washington’s economic and military policies — including backing dictators in Latin America — have negatively affected less powerful nations and their citizens.

His varied experiences made then-Cardinal Robert Prevost uniquely suited to be elected pope despite the College of Cardinals’ traditional skepticism toward the U.S. and its superpower status. Millies argued that Trump and his advisers, even Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, may not appreciate those distinctions.

“This is an administration that seems to think only in terms of transactional politics — who’s for us and who’s against us,” he said.

Polarization poses risks for Leo and Trump

Relations between Washington and the Vatican have become so strained that a report of an allegedly contentious meeting involving Pentagon and Catholic Church officials sent shockwaves through both cities.

According to the report in The Free Press, a member of Trump’s administration warned the church in January not to stand in the way of U.S. military might.

The Vatican on Friday issued a statement rejecting the report’s characterization of the meeting, saying it “does not correspond to the truth in any way.”

The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See also pushed back, writing on social media that “deliberate misrepresentation of these routine meetings sows unfounded division and misunderstanding.”

Millies, meanwhile, questioned whether anything the pope or U.S. bishops say can sway individual Catholics. Trump is likely to lose support among Catholics as he loses support across the broader electorate, Millies said, but that’s not necessarily because members of Leo’s flock are applying church doctrine.

“Partisan preferences always trump the religious commitments,” Millies said, describing a “disconnect” between church leaders and many parishioners who look to other sources, politicians included, when shaping their views of faith and politics.

“The icon of Catholicism in American politics now is JD Vance, and it’s more about winning an argument,” he said. “It’s a very different emphasis, but it’s one that may suit the Trump administration very well.”

Barrow writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Nicole Winfield in Rome and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.

United States President Donald Trump’s disdain for NATO allies dates back to even before he became president the first time. From anger over their relatively low defence spending to — more recently — threats to take over Greenland, the territory of fellow NATO member Denmark, the American leader has long left the alliance on edge.

But the decision of NATO allies not to join Trump’s war on Iran has deepened the fracture to unseen levels, say analysts. This week, Trump called their lack of support a stain on the alliance “that will never disappear”. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany put it even more bluntly, hours later: The conflict “has become a trans-Atlantic stress test”.

That back and forth underscores a central question exposed by the Middle East crisis that experts say NATO can no longer put off: can the transatlantic alliance survive, especially if the US pulls out?

“There will be no return to business as usual in NATO, during neither this US administration nor the next one,” said Jim Townsend, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “We are closer to a break than we have ever been.”

Trump can’t pull the US out of the alliance on a whim.

To formally do so, he needs a two-thirds majority in the US Senate or an act of Congress — scenarios that are unlikely to come to pass any time soon, with NATO still enjoying broad support among many legislators in both major American parties.

But there are other things Trump can do. The US has no obligation to come to the aid of allies should they come under attack. The treaty’s Article 5 states members’ collective‑defence obligation, but it does not automatically force a military response — and there is scepticism among allies over whether Washington would ever come to help.

The US can also move the about 84,000 American troops spread across Europe out of the continent. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Trump was considering moving some US bases from countries deemed unhelpful during the Iran war and transferring them to more supportive countries. He could close down US military bases and cease military coordination with allies.

Since US security guarantees to Europe have undergirded NATO since its founding, such disengagement would do enough damage.

“He doesn’t need to leave NATO to undermine it; by just saying he might, he has already eroded its credibility as an effective alliance,” said Stefano Stefanini, former Italian ambassador to NATO from 2007 to 2010 and former senior adviser to the Italian Presidency.

Still, allies are not helpless. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine revealed the weakened state of European defence industries and their deep reliance on the US. That, coupled with the numerous diplomatic crises in the US-NATO partnership – including Trump’s threat to take control of Greenland – has pushed European allies to invest more in defence capabilities. Between 2020 and 2025, member states’ defence expenditure increased by more than 62 percent.

However, areas where Europe suffers from overdependence on the US include the ability to strike deep into enemy territory, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, space-based capabilities such as satellite intelligence, logistics and integrated air and missile defence, according to a report by the International Institute for Security Studies (IISS).

These challenges remain considerable. It will take the next decade or more to fill them and about $1 trillion to replace key elements of the US conventional military capabilities. Europe’s defence industries are struggling to ramp up production quickly, and many European armies can’t hit their recruitment and retention targets, the IISS report said.

Still, some experts believe a European NATO is possible. Minna Alander, an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, says NATO has, over the years, become a structure for military cooperation between European countries.

“NATO can therefore survive the Iran war — and even a US withdrawal — as European members have an incentive to maintain it, even if in a radically different form,” Alander said.

For some, the deadline is 2029. That is when Russia may have reconstituted its forces sufficiently to attack NATO territory, according to estimates by Germany’s chief of defence, General Carsten Breuer. “But they can start testing us much sooner,” Breuer said in May last year, ordering the German military to be fully equipped with weapons and other material by then. Others estimate that Moscow could pose that threat as early as 2027.

And what about the US — would it do better without NATO?

According to Stefanelli, the former ambassador, the debate about NATO is often “twisted” to portray the alliance’s raison d’être as solely in function of protecting Europe from Russia, as a US favour to the continent.

NATO was a network of alliances born at the onset of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. For decades, the US fought to attract into the alliance as many countries as possible, treating those that refused as friends of the enemy.

Following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, NATO invoked for the first and only time Article 5 to rally behind Washington and sent troops to fight in Afghanistan. Thousands of servicemen died there, including nearly 500 from the United Kingdom, and dozens from France, Denmark, Italy and other countries.

And during the war in Iran, European bases were beneficial staging sites for the US military — even if many countries publicly distanced themselves from the conflict.

“NATO served US interests and Trump comfortably overlooks these aspects,” Farinelli, the former ambassador, said. “Europe has its own responsibility by not investing in defence and creating strong dependence, but thinking that NATO serves only European strategic interests is simply not true.”

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warns ‘time is running out’ amid Israel’s continuing attacks on Lebanon.