united states

US President Donald Trump calls off a planned trip to Pakistan by his envoys, in the latest setback to efforts to end the war with Iran.

Prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough in the US-Israeli war with Iran appear to have dimmed, with negotiations to end the two-month conflict stalled as both Tehran and Washington show little sign of easing their positions.

US President Donald Trump cancelled a planned visit to Islamabad by his envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, dealing blows to peace prospects, while Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, left Pakistan at the weekend. There, he presented mediators with a potential framework for ending the conflict.

The US president has said that Washington has received a new peace proposal from Tehran, but it has already been rejected.

The conflict has already pushed energy prices to multi-year highs, stoked inflation and darkened global growth prospects.

Here is what we know on day 58 of the conflict:

In Iran

• Araghchi left for Oman, saying he would return to Pakistan again on Sunday before heading to Russia, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported.
• According to a statement posted on X by US Central Command (CENTCOM), US forces intercepted a sanctioned ship linked to Iran’s so-called “shadow fleet”.

• The ship, identified as the Sevan, was part of a 19-vessel “shadow fleet” transporting Iranian oil and gas products to foreign markets, the US military said.
• Iran executed a man convicted of being a member of the armed group Jaish al-Adl and carrying out attacks on Iranian security forces, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

War diplomacy

• Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif by phone that Tehran would not enter “imposed negotiations” under threats or blockade, an Iranian government statement said.
• Pezeshkian said the United States should first remove “operational obstacles”, including its blockade on Iranian ports, before negotiators can lay any groundwork to resolve the conflict.
• Iran’s IRNA news agency is reporting that Araghchi and his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelatty, “discussed and exchanged views on issues related to diplomacy and ceasefire, as well as the latest regional developments”.
• Araghchi also had a call with Turkiye’s Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, but the agency did not provide further details.

In the US

• Trump told reporters in Florida that he scrapped the envoys’ visit because the talks involved too much travel and expense to consider an inadequate offer from the Iranians. After the diplomatic trip was called off, Iran “offered a lot, but not enough”, Trump said.
• On Truth Social, he wrote that there was “tremendous infighting and confusion” within Iran’s leadership.
• “Nobody knows who is in charge, including them,” he posted. “Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!”
• Trump said that the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ dinner on Saturday was unrelated to the Iran war. “It’s not going to deter me from winning the war in Iran. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, I really don’t think so, based on what we know,” Trump told reporters.

In Lebanon

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered troops to attack Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, his office said, further testing the three-week ceasefire.
• Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health’s emergency operations centre said two Israeli raids on a truck and a motorcycle in the town of Yohmor al-Shaqif in Nabatieh district killed four people, the Lebanese National News Agency reported.
• Also in southern Lebanon, Israeli soldiers reportedly blew up buildings in the city of Bint Jbeil.

US President Donald Trump has called a shooter who tried to rush the White House Correspondents’ gala, ‘a sick person.’ Trump says the man was heavily armed, but was apprehended by the Secret Service.

Trump says the shooter has been apprehended and that First Lady Melania Trump and Vice President JD Vance are ‘in perfect condition’.

Trump says Tehran did not make satisfactory offer after Iranian foreign minister travelled to Pakistan to present a framework to mediators to end the war.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

The US president was escorted out from the event at a Washington DC hotel by his secret service agents.

United States President Donald Trump has been evacuated from the White House correspondents’ dinner at a hotel in Washington, DC, by his secret service agents.

The evacuation on Saturday evening came after loud sounds were heard inside the banquet hall of the Washington Hilton, where the event was taking place.

Footage from the scene showed Trump and attendees taking cover after the loud noise, after which the US president was led away. Heavily armed agents then take over the head table.

More soon…

Lawyers say El Gamal family detained by Trump administration hours after returning home from 10-month detention.

A United States federal court has blocked the administration of United States President Donald Trump from deporting a woman and her five children following their release from immigration detention.

Hayam El Gamal and her five children, ranging in age from five to 18 years old, had been held for 10 months prior to their release earlier this week following a judge’s order. They had been held in detention for the longest of any known family during Trump’s second term in office,

But just days after returning to their home in Colorado, immigration authorities again detained the family on Saturday and sought to swiftly deport them, according to their lawyer.

“The Trump administration has kidnapped the El Gamal family in violation of a federal court order from the Western District of Texas, which ordered them Thursday not to detain or remove the family from the United States,” a statement from the family lawyers, shared by lawyer Eric Lee, said.

“The attempt to remove the El Gamal family is in violation of a federal court order and must be halted immediately,” it adds.

Lee said shortly after that US District Judge Fred Biery, who ordered the family’s initial release on Thursday, had granted an emergency order on Saturday barring their removal.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

The Trump administration has at times flouted court orders barring it from deporting people from the US, pushing a hardline approach that critics say has defied legal constraints.

That has come amid a wider campaign to restrict immigration, legal and illegal, particularly from non-Western countries.

Hayam El Gamal and her children were detained by the Trump administration after her former husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, attacked a group of people in Boulder, Colorado, as they gathered in support of Israeli captives held by the Palestinian armed group Hamas in June 2025.

An 82-year-old woman later died from injuries sustained during the incident.

Soliman’s family condemned the attack and denied any knowledge that it was going to take place, with NBC News reporting that El Gamal divorced her husband soon after his arrest.

An FBI agent also testified under oath that there was no evidence that the family, who have not been charged with any crimes, was aware of the father’s plan.

Their nearly yearlong detention by the Trump administration has been described by the family’s lawyers and several lawmakers as an illegal and cruel effort to punish the family for an act they did not commit.

Following Soliman’s arrest, the White House, in a post on X, said it would seek to immediately expel the family, whose lawyers have said are in the process of applying for asylum after coming to the US on tourist visas from Egypt.

“Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed’s Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon,” the White House post said.

The family has experienced deteriorating health and been denied proper medical care while in detention, according to their lawyers. Earlier in April, El Gamal was hospitalised due to a medical emergency related to an untreated growth on her chest, they said.

Immigration rights groups have noted that it is typically illegal to detain children for extended periods of time.

In a statement earlier this week, US Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said the Trump administration’s motives would be clear if they sought to re-detain the family despite the judge’s order to release them.

“If, despite the judge’s recommendation, the Department of Homeland Security still objects to the release of an innocent woman and her five children, we know exactly why that is the case,” Durbin said.

“It is not because they present any danger to the community or a flight risk. It is because they are immigrants – Arab Muslim immigrants at that.”

Trump later suggests that next talks will be over phone, saying ‘If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!’

United States President Donald Trump has announced that his envoys would not be travelling to Pakistan for talks with Iranian officials after Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left the country.

The US president told news outlet Fox News that he had ordered Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to ditch plans to visit the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, for the possible talks, despite his earlier claims that Iran was “making an offer” aimed at resolving the two-month conflict.

“I said, ‘Nope, you’re not making an 18-hour flight to go there. We have all the cards. They can call us anytime they want, but you’re not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing,” Trump said.

In any case, Araghchi had already departed Islamabad, the first destination of a three-leg tour including Oman and Russia. Iran’s state-run Press TV confirmed he left on Saturday after meeting Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.

Posting on X, Araghchi said he had shared “Iran’s position concerning workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran” with Pakistani officials. “Have yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy,” he added.

Later, Trump appeared to say on social media that any future talks would be taking place over the phone. “If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!” he wrote, adding that nobody knew who was in charge in Iran and that there was “tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership’”.

Reporting from Washington, Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan said Trump’s comments suggested that the US did not see “any yielding on the Iranians part”.

She said that his talk of holding “all the cards” appeared to allude to “the US naval blockade, as well as the ongoing presence of more than 50,000 troops in the region, ready to resume combat operations”.

The pressure to strike a deal to permanently end the war has mounted amid an ongoing standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments transit.

Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Saturday that they had no intention of ending their effective blocking of the waterway, which has thrown energy markets into turmoil, according to the news agency AFP.

Asked by US media outlet Axios whether the cancelled trip by his envoys meant a resumption of hostilities, Trump said: “No. It doesn’t mean that. We haven’t thought about it yet.”

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Araghchi had arrived in Muscat on Saturday for meetings with Omani officials. He is also expected to travel on to Russia to discuss efforts to end the war, which the United States and Israel began against Iran on February 28.

Defence lawyers had asked for case to be thrown out, claiming Maduro’s rights were violated following US abduction.

The United States has agreed to ease certain sanctions on Venezuela in order to allow the country’s government to cover the legal fees for ex-president Nicolas Maduro, who is on federal trial in New York City for drug trafficking charges after being abducted by US forces in January.

Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, had asked the Manhattan-based US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to toss out the case in February, arguing that a prohibition on the government in Caracas paying the legal fees constituted a violation of Maduro’s legal right to the counsel of his choice.

In a court filing, US Department of Justice lawyers agreed to modify US sanctions so that the Venezuelan government could pay Maduro’s defence lawyer. They said the change makes the defence’s motion to throw out the case “moot”.

The pivot is the latest update in a closely watched trial that has raised a series of legal questions based on Maduro’s status as a former head of state and how he was taken into US custody.

Critics have condemned the proceedings as fundamentally illegitimate, pointing to the extraordinary US military operation to abduct Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from Venezuela. Legal experts have called the raid a blatant violation of international law.

The Trump administration has maintained that the abduction was a law enforcement operation supported by the military. It has argued that Washington does not recognise Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela following several contested elections.

Under the international law concept of “head of state immunity”, sitting world leaders are typically granted immunity from foreign national courts.

After being spirited to the US, Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty and remain jailed in Brooklyn, New York. Maduro has rejected the US charges as a false pretext for seizing control of the South American country’s natural resources.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire for foreign companies to access Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

During a hearing on March 26, Judge Hellerstein did not signal that he would throw out the trial, but did question whether the sanctions preventing the Venezuelan government from covering Maduro’s legal fees were a violation of constitutional rights.

All criminal defendants in the US have constitutional rights, regardless of whether or not they are US citizens.

Prosecutors, at the time, argued that the sanctions were based on national security interests and asserted that the executive branch, rather than the judiciary, oversees foreign policy.

They further argued that Maduro and Flores could use personal funds to pay for a lawyer of their choice.

“The defendant is here, Flores is here. They present no further national security threat,” said Hellerstein.

“The right that’s implicated, paramount over other rights, is the right to constitutional counsel.”

Washington, DC – Donald Trump — whose political career has been built, in part, on deriding the United States press — is set to attend his first White House Correspondents’ Dinner as president.

Saturday’s event continues a decades-long tradition, dating back to 1921. Still, the black-tie gala held in Washington, DC, remains a divisive event.

For years, detractors have argued its chummy approach to the presidency risks blurring the independence of the press corps.

Trump himself is one of the dinner’s critics. Until this year, Trump had refused to attend, appearing poised to defy a tradition of sitting presidents dining at least once with the press corps during the annual event.

Since he launched his first presidential campaign, Trump has taken a bellicose approach towards the media, issuing both personal attacks on journalists and lawsuits against news organisations for coverage he deems unfair.

His presence at Saturday’s dinner has only heightened questions about the event’s role in the modern era.

Trump has previously declined five previous invitations to attend, across his first and second terms. His inaugural visit on Saturday has been accompanied by changes to the dinner’s format: Most notably, the longstanding practice of having a comedian perform has been nixed.

Journalist organisations and rights groups, meanwhile, have called on the event’s host, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), to send a “forthright message” to the president about protecting the freedom of the press.

“We also urge the WHCA to reaffirm, without equivocation, that freedom of the press is not a partisan issue,” a coalition of groups, including the Society of Professional Journalists, wrote in an open letter.

A return for Trump?

Saturday is set to be the first time Trump attends the correspondents’ dinner as president, but it is not his first time attending the event.

He was present as a private citizen at the 2011 dinner, years before launching his first successful presidential campaign.

At the time, Trump had begun his foray into national politics, pushing the so-called “birtherism” theory: the racist claim that then-President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and had faked his US birth certificate.

It is tradition for the sitting president to speak at the event, and Obama seized the moment to lob barbs at Trump’s conspiracy theories and his nascent political career.

In one instance, Obama poked fun at Trump’s work hosting the reality television show The Apprentice.

Referring to Trump’s “firing” of actor Gary Busey, Obama mockingly praised his decision-making. “These are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night,” he quipped. “Well played, sir.”

Obama also envisioned what a future Trump presidency would look like, displaying a mock-up of a “Trump White House Resort and Casino”.

Comedian Seth Meyers, who hosted the night’s event, also took aim at Trump’s birtherism claims and political ambitions.

“Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican,” he quipped at one point, “which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke.”

Trump sat stone-faced in the audience, with several confidants later crediting the night as a major motivator for his 2016 presidential bid.

The White House Correspondents’ Association was launched in 1914, as a response to threats by then-President Woodrow Wilson to do away with presidential news conferences. The organisation has worked to expand White House access for reporters.

Comedians became mainstays of the annual dinner in the early 1980s, with both presidents and journalists often the subject of their pointed jokes.

Defenders of the event have argued that the presence of comedians helps to celebrate free speech and ground the black-tie proceedings, underscoring that no attendee is above ridicule.

But since President Trump first declined to attend the event after taking office in 2017, that norm has shifted.

Michelle Wolf’s no-holds-barred performance in 2018 is often seen as a breaking point.

In her jokes, she seized upon Trump’s past statements appearing to praise sexual assault, and she charged that Trump did not have a “big enough spine to attend” the event. She also mocked the mainstream media’s coverage of the president.

While praised by fellow comedians and some members of the press, her performance divided the White House press corps. Trump and his top officials took particular issue with the material, with the president decrying Wolf as “filthy”.

The following year, the association instead invited historian Ron Chernow to speak at the event. The dinner did not have another comedian until 2022, during the administration of US President Joe Biden.

Last year, during Trump’s first term back in office, the association abruptly cancelled a planned performance by comedian Amber Ruffin, with the board’s then-President Eugene Daniels saying it wanted to avoid “politics of division”.

This year, a mentalist, Oz Pearlman, is set to perform instead of a comedian.

Calls for press freedom

The Society of Professional Journalists, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and The National Association of Black Journalists are among the organisations and hundreds of individual journalists urging their colleagues to use the event to make a statement.

In an open letter, it said the actions by the Trump administration “represent the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president”.

The organisation pointed to a series of hostile actions the Trump administration has taken against journalists.

They include limiting the White House and Pentagon press pools, threats by the Federal Communications Commission against broadcasters, immigration enforcement actions against non-citizen journalists, and an FBI raid of a Washington Post reporter’s home.

The letter also pointed to the White House’s launching of a “hall of shame” page on its website, which highlights news organisations accused of biased coverage, as well as Trump’s repeated verbal attacks on reporters.

But the Trump administration has rejected allegations that it treats journalists unfairly or that it has prevented public access to information.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, for example, has regularly touted Trump as the “most transparent” president in US history, pointing to his regular media events.

During his second term, Trump has also taken spur-of-the-moment phone interviews from reporters, even amid the US-Israeli war in Iran.

In their letter, the journalists and professional organisations note that some attendees on Saturday plan to wear pocket handkerchiefs or lapel pins with the words “First Amendment”.

The pins reference the section of the US Constitution that protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

But the journalists called on the White House Correspondents’ Association to go further and make it clear that it will not “normalise” Trump’s behaviour — “but instead fight back against any officeholder who has waged systematic war against the journalists whose work the dinner celebrates”.

The Los Angeles Lakers, fuelled by 29 points from LeBron James, beat the Houston Rockets 112-108 in an overtime thriller to take a 3-0 stranglehold in their NBA playoff series.

James, the 41-year-old superstar playing in his 19th postseason, came up with a steal and a game-tying three-pointer with 13.6 seconds left in regulation on Friday.

He could not get a potential game-winner to drop at the buzzer, but added a steal and a block in a frantic overtime as the Lakers pushed the Rockets to the brink of elimination in the best-of-seven Western Conference series.

No NBA team has come back from a 0-3 deficit to win a playoff series.

“Just trying to seize the opportunity,” James, who added 13 rebounds, six assists and three steals, told broadcaster Prime. “My guys trust me to try to make plays and I’m blessed to be able to do it.”

The Lakers will have a chance to close out the series in Houston on Sunday. It is not a position many expected them to be in with league-leading scorer Luka Doncic sidelined by a hamstring strain and key offensive contributor Austin Reaves out with an oblique injury.

The young Rockets, with veteran star Kevin Durant sidelined by a sprained ankle, were led by Alperen Sengun’s 33 points and 16 rebounds.

They rallied from an early 15-point deficit and led by six with fewer than 30 seconds left in regulation.

But their mistakes caught up with them. A Houston turnover was followed by a foul on Marcus Smart as he attempted a three-pointer.

Smart made all three free throws to cut the Lakers’ deficit to 101-98 and set the stage for James’s game-tying basket.

Sengun missed a potential go-ahead basket before James was off-target from beyond the arc and they went to overtime, Smart scoring eight of his 21 points in the extra session as the Lakers pulled away.

Celtics hold off 76ers

Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown scored 25 points apiece to lead the Celtics to a hard-fought 108-100 victory over the 76ers in Philadelphia and a 2-1 lead in their Eastern Conference series.

The Sixers had grabbed game two in Boston to knot the series at one game apiece.

In a game that neither team led by more than 10 points, the Celtics took a five-point lead into the fourth quarter.

Tyrese Maxey’s three-pointer briefly put the Sixers up 85-84 with 8:42 remaining, and Philadelphia were within one when Tatum drilled a three-pointer that pushed Boston’s lead to 100-96 with 1:57 left to play.

Payton Pritchard added another three-pointer with the shot-clock winding down before Tatum – who missed most of the season after suffering a torn Achilles tendon in last year’s playoffs – drained a dagger trey that sealed it for Boston.

“We just were resilient,” Tatum told broadcaster Prime. “We stuck with it. It’s a game of runs – good team and just, you’ve got to answer.”

Maxey scored 31 points to lead the Sixers. Paul George added 18 and rookie VJ Edgecombe added 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Sixers star Joel Embiid, still recovering from an emergency appendectomy earlier this month, was ruled out shortly before the game.

“He’s just not ready,” said Sixers coach Nick Nurse, whose team will try to even the series when they host game four on Sunday.

Spurs beat Trail Blazers without Wembanyama

Stephon Castle had 33 points and the San Antonio Spurs overcame the absence of Victor Wembanyama to beat the Portland Trail Blazers 120-108 on Friday night for a 2-1 series lead.

Dylan Harper added 27 points and 10 rebounds for the Spurs, who trailed by 15 points in the third quarter. Game 4 of the first-round series will be on Sunday at the Moda Center.

Before the game, Spurs coach Mitch Johnson announced that Wembanyama would not play while he continues to recover from a concussion he sustained in Game 2 on Tuesday night.

Jrue Holiday had 29 points for the Trail Blazers, who were making their first home playoff appearance since 2021, but could not ultimately take advantage of Wembanyama’s absence.

Portland led 82-67 in the third quarter but the Spurs clawed back with a 21-5 run to take an 88-87 lead into the final period. Castle’s step-back jumper and a pair of free throws gave the Spurs a 105-95 lead midway through the fourth and the Trail Blazers collapsed.

Wembanyama – the league’s first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year and one of three finalists for the Most Valuable Player award – went down in the second quarter of the Spurs’ 106-103 Game 2 loss in San Antonio.

Johnson would not elaborate on Wembanyama’s condition, only to say he was progressing. He averaged 25 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists and a league-best 3.1 blocks per game this season. His status for Sunday’s game was not known.

Luke Kornet started against the Trail Blazers as Wembanyama watched from the bench, finishing with 14 points and 10 rebounds.

Portland went on a 15-2 run in the first half to go up 50-43 and led 65-59 at the break after Jerami Grant’s 3-pointer.

In the final moments of the half, Fox was handed an offensive foul when he charged towards the basket and elbowed Deni Avdija in the face. Johnson challenged the call and it was overturned to a defensive foul on Avdija, who had chipped a tooth but kept playing.

Iran’s foreign minister is in Islamabad, with US envoys also on the way. Iranian officials deny they plan on holding talks with US delegates, but the visits have raised hopes the two sides can break the Strait of Hormuz deadlock with diplomacy.

Tech firm suspended mass shooter’s ChatGPT account before attacks, but did not inform law enforcement.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has apologised over his company’s failure to warn authorities about the concerning online activities of a teen who went on to commit one of Canada’s worst mass shootings.

Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, went on a shooting spree in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on February 10, killing eight people.

The victims included Rootselaar’s mother and half-brother, and five students at the remote community’s secondary school.

Rootselaar, who was born male but identified as female, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

OpenAI said after the attacks that Rootselaar’s ChatGPT account had been flagged internally the previous June for misuse “in furtherance of violent activities”, resulting in its suspension.

The San Francisco-based AI company said at the time that it had not informed authorities, as Rootselaar’s usage of the chatbot had not met the threshold of posing a credible or imminent threat of harm to others.

In a letter shared on Friday by the Tumbler RidgeLines news site and British Columbia Premier David Eby, Altman acknowledged that OpenAI should have alerted law enforcement to Rootselaar’s suspension.

“I am deeply sorry that we did not alert law enforcement to the account that was banned in June. While I know words can never be enough, I believe an apology is necessary to recognize the harm and irreversible loss your community has suffered,” Altman wrote.

“I reaffirm the commitment I made to the Mayor and the Premier to find ways to prevent tragedies like this in the future,” Altman added.

“Going forward, our focus will continue to be on working with all levels of government to help ensure something like this never happens again.”

Altman’s statement of regret came after Eby said last month that the tech CEO had agreed to apologise to the Tumbler Ridge community over OpenAI’s failure to flag Rootselaar as a threat.

In his letter, Altman said Eby and Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka had conveyed “the anger, sadness, and concern” being felt in the community in their discussions.

“We agreed a public apology was necessary, but that time was also needed to respect the community as you grieved. I share this letter with the understanding that everyone grieves in their own way and in their own time,” Altman wrote.

“I want to express my deepest condolences to the entire community. No one should ever have to endure a tragedy like this. I cannot imagine anything worse in this world than losing a child.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrives in Islamabad, but Tehran yet to commit to more talks with US delegation.

United States President Donald Trump is sending envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan as Iran’s foreign minister arrived in the country, raising hopes of new talks on ending the US-Israeli war on Iran amid a fragile ceasefire and growing tensions over control of the Hormuz Strait.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Friday that US envoys would sit down with Abbas Araghchi, expressing hope that parties would “move the ball forward to a deal”, but it remained unclear whether the Iranian delegation had agreed to hold talks.

Writing on X on Friday, Iran’s top diplomat had said he was off on a “timely tour of Islamabad, Muscat, and Moscow”, to coordinate on “bilateral matters”, with no specific mention of any intention to meet with US negotiators.

Trump expressed optimism over a potential deal, telling the news agency Reuters that Iran was “making an offer” aimed at satisfying US demands, which include ending its nuclear programme.

Earlier, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran had a chance to make a “good deal”. “Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely … at the negotiating table,” he said, adding that all they had to do was “abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways”.

But two Pakistani government sources told Reuters that the Iranian foreign minister’s visit would be brief, focusing on Iran’s proposals for talks with the US, which mediator Pakistan would then convey to Washington.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem said a “senior official” had “made it clear” to him that there would not be any US-Iran talks in Pakistan.

“These regional partners all have their own ideas on how to solve this deadlock, but for the moment, Iran has said it would not meet for a new round of talks,” he said.

Top negotiators from last round absent

Reports on Araghchi’s trip in Iranian state media made no mention of Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, who was the head of its delegation at talks with a US delegation earlier this month that ended with no breakthrough.

The Iranian parliament’s media office denied a report that Ghalibaf had resigned as head of Iran’s negotiating team, adding that there was no new round of talks scheduled yet, according to Reuters.

US Vice President JD Vance also participated in the first round of talks, but is not travelling to Pakistan on this occasion, though Leavitt said he remained “deeply involved” and was on “standby” to join if needed.

She said Trump decided to send Witkoff and Kushner to Pakistan “to hear the Iranians out”. “We’ve certainly seen some progress from the Iranian side in the last couple of days,” she maintained, without offering any further details.

Reporting from Washington, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said there appeared to be a “graded process” in place, describing it as “an initial exploratory phase” that could lead to “higher-level engagement if negotiations deepen”.

A new round of talks had been expected to start on Tuesday but did not materialise, with Iran saying it was not yet ready to commit to attending.

Trump had unilaterally extended a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday to allow more time to reconvene the negotiators as the US continued its blockade on Iranian ports.

Iran says it will not stop blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial maritime trade chokepoint, until Trump lifts his blockade. On Friday, the US applied more pressure on Tehran by freezing $344m in cryptocurrency assets in a bid to “systematically degrade Tehran’s ability to generate, move, and repatriate funds”.

Judge had previously blocked move to end temporary legal status for those who entered US via Biden-era application.

The administration of President Donald Trump plans to again end the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of people who applied for asylum in the United States via the CBP One app.

The plan was detailed in a court filing in Boston, Massachusetts, and comes after a judge ruled that Trump’s earlier effort to terminate the legal status of those individuals was unlawful.

Under US President Joe Biden, individuals who registered for an appointment with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were preliminarily vetted and granted temporary legal status in the US as their asylum cases were adjudicated.

About 900,000 people were granted so-called humanitarian parole under the programme.

But in April of last year, just months after Trump took office for a second term, many of those individuals received emails saying their status had been terminated.

The message told its recipients it was “time for you to leave the United States”.

Federal Judge Allison Burroughs subsequently ruled that the Department of Homeland Security did not follow the proper procedures in terminating the legal status immigration status of CBP One users.

The US Department of Justice, in the new filings, told Burroughs that the Trump administration was complying with ⁠her order.

However, the department said the administration would begin issuing new parole termination notices, pursuant to a Tuesday memo from CBP’s head, Rodney Scott.

The memo is not public, but according to the Justice Department, Scott provided ‌an explanation for why, in his opinion, “parole is no longer appropriate for those aliens”.

Lawyers for Democracy Forward and Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, which represent the individuals whose status faces termination, urged Burroughs in a subsequent filing to prevent what they called a “deliberate attempt to evade compliance with the court’s order”.

The next hearing was set for May 6.

During his second term, Trump has pursued a hardline immigration policy that has included staunching nearly all asylum claims at the southern border.

Shortly after taking office, Trump’s officials also dissolved the CBP One app and relaunched it as CBP Home, a tool for self-deportation.

His administration has claimed there was an “invasion” at the border that constituted a “national emergency”, thereby allowing Trump to bypass legal requirements to allow individuals seeking asylum into the country.

Asylum, however, is a right enshrined both in domestic and international law, to protect people fleeing persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

Separately, on Friday, a federal appeals court ruled against the Trump administration’s ban on asylum at the southern US border, potentially clearing the way for applications to once again be processed.

The administration is expected to appeal the decision.

Judges say Trump’s order for swift removal at the border ‘cast aside federal laws affording’ right to seek asylum.

An appeals court has ruled that President Donald Trump’s ban on asylum applications in the United States is unlawful, dealing a setback to the administration’s immigration crackdown.

In a decision released on Friday, a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, found that existing laws — namely the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) — give people the right to apply for asylum at the border.

Trump had issued the asylum ban in a proclamation on January 20, 2025, on the first day of his second term.

But the appeals court questioned whether suspending asylum unilaterally was within the president’s power.

“Congress did not intend to grant the Executive the expansive removal authority it asserts,” the ruling said.

“The Proclamation and Guidance are thus unlawful to the extent that they circumvent the INA’s removal procedures and cast aside federal laws affording individuals the right to apply and be considered for asylum or withholding of removal protections.”

The decision validated a ruling by a lower court. While the judges blocked Trump’s order, it is unclear what its immediate impact will be. Already, the White House has signalled it plans to appeal.

Trump made immigration a major pillar of his 2024 re-election campaign, pledging to repel what he describes as an “invasion” of migrants by shutting down the southern border of the US.

Asylum in the US can be granted to people facing “persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group”. Such protections have been recognised as a fundamental human right under international law.

But unauthorised border crossings reached record levels during the administration of President Joe Biden, which had itself imposed asylum restrictions.

Millions of migrants — many suffering from gang violence and political persecution in Central and South America — have claimed asylum upon reaching the US.

Nearly 945,000 filed for asylum in 2023, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

In his January 2025 decree, Trump suspended “the physical entry of aliens involved in an invasion into the United States across the southern border”.

The proclamation was quickly challenged in court, as other measures in Trump’s immigration crackdown have been.

But the appeals court panel concluded that the INA does not authorise the president to remove the plaintiffs under “procedures of his own making”.

Nor does it allow him to suspend the plaintiffs’ right to apply for asylum or curtail procedures for adjudicating claims of torture and persecution.

“The power by proclamation to temporarily suspend the entry of specified foreign individuals into the United States does not contain implicit authority to override the INA’s mandatory process to summarily remove foreign individuals,” wrote Judge J Michelle Childs, a Biden appointee.

The Trump administration will likely appeal the ruling to the full appellate court and subsequently to the Supreme Court.

The White House stressed after the court’s decision that banning asylum is part of Trump’s constitutional powers as commander-in-chief.

“We have liberal judges across the country who are acting against this president for political purposes. They are not acting as true litigators of the law. They are looking at these cases from a political lens,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Amnesty International and dozens of U.S. civil and human rights groups issued a “ World Cup travel advisory” Thursday, warning tournament visitors of “rising authoritarianism and increasing violence” in the United States during President Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement.

The groups said the advisory was necessary “in light of the deteriorating human rights situation in the United States and in the absence of meaningful action and concrete guarantees from FIFA, host cities, or the U.S. government.”

The advisory says visitors may be arbitrarily denied entry to the country, detained in “inhumane” conditions or subjected to invasive phone and social media searches. It points to the aggressive immigration surges in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis that led to accusations of racial profiling and the violent suppression of protests.

The message was condemned by tourism officials, who said the groups were threatening the livelihoods of service industry workers in an attempt to achieve their political goals.

Geoff Freeman, president & CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, said there are legitimate concerns about U.S. entry policies but they’re being blown out of proportion. There were 67 million international travelers to the United States last year, he said in a statement.

“The notion that visiting America poses a meaningful safety risk is not a good-faith warning, it’s a political tactic designed to cause economic harm,” Freeman said.

A FIFA spokesperson pointed to several statements and policies, including the federation’s governing documents, which say, “FIFA is committed to respecting all internationally recognized human rights and shall strive to promote the protection of these rights.”

The U.S. has seen a decline in international travelers since Trump returned to the White House last year and offended U.S. allies with talk of making Canada a U.S. state, taking control of Greenland and questioning the value of NATO. The tourism industry is counting on a major boost from World Cup visitors, even as Trump’s travel ban for citizens of 19 countries has injected further uncertainty.

The administration is betting that its push to expedite visa processing for visitors and excitement about the tournament will outweigh concerns that Trump’s immigration messaging undercuts the theme of global unity that the World Cup is meant to represent.

The tournament kicks off June 11 with games spread across North America, including 11 stadiums in the U.S. along with two in Canada and three in Mexico.

Cooper writes for the Associated Press.

As tensions ramp up amid fragile truce, US military says it ‘redirected’ 34 vessels as part of blockade on Iran’s ports.

The United States has three aircraft carriers in the Middle East for the first time in 23 years with the arrival of the USS George HW Bush, the US military has said, amid a fragile ceasefire with Iran.

The Middle East-based Central Command (CENTCOM) of the US military said on Friday that the carriers include 12 accompanying ships, more than 200 aircraft, and 15,000 soldiers.

“For the first time in decades, three aircraft carriers are operating in the Middle East at the same time,” CENTCOM said.

The last time the US amassed that amount of military assets in the region’s waters was in the lead up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The other two US aircraft carriers in the region are USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R Ford, which is the largest in the world.

The show of force signals that the US is preparing to return to fighting should the fragile ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran unravel.

Diplomacy between the two countries has been in limbo, with Iran setting the lifting of the US naval blockade against its ports as a condition for resuming the talks.

US President Donald Trump announced extending the truce on Wednesday, but he said the naval siege would persist.

For its part, Iran has reblocked the Strait of Hormuz in response to the US blockade after declaring the waterway completely open last week when the regional ceasefire was extended to Lebanon.

Trump has not set a deadline for the extended ceasefire and suggested that he is comfortable with the status quo, which he argues is depleting the Iranian economy at a low cost for the US.

“I have all the time in the World, but Iran doesn’t,” he wrote in a social media post on Thursday.

The US president was later asked how long he would be willing to wait before receiving a proposed deal from Iran. He said: “Don’t rush me.”

Iran has described the blockade – which has seen US forces seize at least two Iranian oil ships – as an “act of war”.

Iranian forces have also captured foreign commercial ships in the Hormuz Strait, accusing them of violating maritime regulations.

With negotiations on hold, Trump has shown no signs of willingness to lift the siege in order to facilitate talks.

On Friday, the US military said it has “redirected” 34 vessels in the region. “The blockade against ships entering or exiting Iranian ports continues,” CENTCOM said.

Trump has previously threatened to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including bridges, power and water stations.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that his country is awaiting the green light from Trump to return Iran to the “age of darkness”.

“Israel is prepared to renew the war against Iran. The [Israeli military] is ready in defence and offence, and the targets are marked,” Katz said, according to The Times of Israel newspaper.

The announcement on Friday is expected to clear the path for the confirmation of his successor, Kevin Warsh.

The United States Department of Justice has ended its probe into US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, clearing a major roadblock to the confirmation of his successor, Kevin Warsh.

US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeannine Pirro said on X on Friday that her office was ending its probe into the Fed’s extensive building renovations because the Fed’s inspector general would scrutinise them instead.

Pirro, a Trump ally and the top federal prosecutor in Washington, DC, said she had instead asked the Fed’s internal watchdog, the Office of Inspector General, to examine cost overruns in renovations of the central bank’s Washington headquarters.

“The IG has the authority to hold the Federal Reserve accountable to American taxpayers,” Pirro said in a social media post. “I expect a comprehensive report in short order and am confident the outcome will assist in resolving, once and for all, the questions that led this office to issue subpoenas.”

The move could lead to a swift confirmation vote by the Senate for Warsh, a former top Fed official whom US President Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated in January to replace Powell. Powell’s term as chair ends May 15.

Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, had said he would oppose Warsh until the investigation was resolved, effectively blocking his confirmation.

The leadership transition at the world’s leading central bank could now proceed quickly.

Republicans praised Warsh during a Tuesday hearing even as Democrats questioned his independence from Trump, the lack of transparency around some of his financial holdings, and what they said was his flip-flopping on interest rates. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the committee, questioned if Warsh will be a “sock puppet“.

Still, Trump’s previous appointment to the Fed’s board of governors, Stephen Miran, was approved by the full Senate just 13 days after his nomination.

No evidence

The investigation was among several undertaken by the Department of Justice into Trump’s perceived adversaries. For months, it had failed to gain traction as prosecutors struggled to articulate a basis to suspect criminal conduct.

A prosecutor handling the case conceded at a closed-door court hearing in March that the government had not yet found any evidence of a crime, and a judge subsequently quashed subpoenas issued to the Federal Reserve.

The judge, James Boasberg, said prosecutors had produced “essentially zero evidence” to suspect Powell of a crime. Boasberg branded prosecutors’ justification for the subpoenas as “thin and unsubstantiated”.

More recently, prosecutors made an unannounced visit to a construction site at the Fed’s headquarters but were turned away, drawing a rebuke from a defence lawyer in the case who called the manoeuvre “not appropriate”.

Warsh said during the Senate hearing on Tuesday that he never promised the White House that he would cut interest rates, even as the president renewed his calls for the central bank to do so.

“The president never once asked me to commit to any particular interest rate decision, period,” Warsh said during the hearing. “Nor would I ever agree to do so if he had … I will be an independent actor if confirmed as chair of the Federal Reserve.”

Warsh’s comments came just hours after Trump, in an interview on CNBC, was asked if he would be disappointed if Warsh did not immediately cut rates and responded, “I would.”

The decision to abandon the investigation represents a rare pullback for a Department of Justice that over the last year has moved aggressively, albeit unsuccessfully, to prosecute public figures the president does not like.

Robert Hur, an lawyer for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, did not immediately respond on Friday to an email seeking comment.

On April 20, the United States fired at and then seized an Iranian-flagged container ship close to the Strait of Hormuz in the northern Arabian Sea, amid its blockade of Iranian ports.

It was similar to a scene which played out in the 1980s during the so-called Tanker War between Iran and Iraq, during which both countries fired on each other’s tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, seeking to cripple each other’s economies.

As naval tensions rise again in the Strait of Hormuz – this time between Iran and the US – we break down what happened in the 1980s and examine the parallels and differences between the situations then and now:

How the 1980s Tanker War played out – a timeline

The war between Iran and Iraq began in 1980 when then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched a full-scale invasion of Iran following Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

In 1984, this war reached the Gulf when Iraq attacked Iranian oil tankers, seeking to cripple its oil-revenue-dependent economy. Iran retaliated by firing at oil tankers belonging to Iraq and its allies in the Gulf.

According to a report by the University of Texas’s Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law, Iran also threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz then, but did not do so since its own economy, already crippled by the war, was dependent on exporting oil to the rest of the world through it.

In November 1986, when Iran struck Kuwait’s ships, Kuwait asked for foreign help. The former Soviet Union was the first to respond and helped escort the nation’s ships in the Gulf.

The US, led by then-president Ronald Reagan, launched Operation Earnest Will in July 1987, also seeking to protect tankers in the Gulf and render more assistance than Moscow. The operation involved reflagging Kuwaiti tankers with the US flag so they could legally sail under US protection.

According to an article by the Veterans Breakfast Club, a US-based website which shares experiences of former US military veterans, during Washington’s very first escort mission in July 1987, a reflagged tanker hit an Iranian mine in the Gulf.

“The convoy continued, but the incident made clear that the United States had entered a shadow war with Iran at sea,” the article said.

“Over the next fourteen months, dozens of US warships rotated through the region escorting tankers and protecting shipping lanes. US forces also conducted special operations to hunt Iranian mine-layers at night and conducted strikes against Iranian military positions and ships. The mission wasn’t a small one, consuming 30 US Navy ships at one time,” the article added.

Then in April 1988, the US frigate USS Samuel B Roberts was damaged by an Iranian mine in the Strait of Hormuz. Historian Samuel Cox, writing for the US Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC), noted in 2018 that by the end of 1987 that vessel was so badly damaged, that “the only thing actually holding the ship together was the main deck”.

So, the US launched Operation Praying Mantis, seeking to destroy Iranian vessels.

The tanker war eventually ended in August 1988, following a United Nations-brokered ceasefire agreement between Iran and Iraq.

Cox noted that by the end of 1987, “Iraq had conducted 283 attacks on shipping, while Iran attacked 168 times. Combined, the attacks had killed 116 merchant sailors, with 37 missing and 167 wounded, from a wide variety of nationalities.”

“Initially, there was great concern that the attacks would cut off the vital flow of oil from the Arabian Gulf, but all they really did was drive up insurance rates. The world’s need for oil was so great, that over 100 dead merchant seamen was apparently an acceptable price,” he wrote.

What is happening in the Strait of Hormuz now?

The current hostilities between the US and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz began when Tehran, whose territorial waters extend into the strait, closed passage to all vessels after the US and Israel began bombing the country. On March 4, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) declared that it was in full control of the strait, and ships would need to get clearance from them to pass through it.

Shipping through the strait collapsed by 95 percent, sending the price of oil – 20 percent of global supplies of which are shipped this way – soaring above $100 a barrel.

Iran, through its imposition of control over who passes through Hormuz, has for almost eight weeks now, determined which vessels can exit the strait from the Gulf into the Gulf of Oman.

At first, Iran indicated that it would allow “friendly” ships to pass if they paid a toll. On March 26, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iran’s state TV: “The Strait of Hormuz, from our perspective, is not completely closed. It is closed only to enemies. There is no reason to allow the ships of our enemies and their allies to pass.”

Vessels from Malaysia, China, Egypt, South Korea, India and Pakistan passed through the strait through most of March and early April.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) provided these vessels with an alternative route through the Strait of Hormuz to avoid potential sea mines. US officials, including Donald Trump, have said mines have been placed there by Iran, although it has not officially confirmed or denied this.

But on April 13, alarmed that Iran was continuing to ship its own oil out of the strait, the US imposed a naval blockade of all Iranian ports. Since then, US Central Command has said US forces have directed 33 Iran-linked vessels to turn around or return to an Iranian port.

On Monday, the US military fired on and then captured the Iranian-flagged container ship Touska close to the Strait of Hormuz in the northern Arabian Sea, and, a day later, detained another oil tanker sanctioned for transporting Iranian crude oil as it sailed in the Bay of Bengal, which links India and Southeast Asia.

In a post on social media after detaining the Touska, the Pentagon wrote: “As we have made clear, we will pursue global maritime enforcement efforts to disrupt illicit networks and interdict sanctioned vessels providing material support to Iran – anywhere they operate.
International waters are not a refuge for sanctioned vessels.”

Since the US naval blockade of Iranian ports began, Tehran, which was earlier allowing vessels from “friendly” nations to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, has further tightened its grip on the strait.

Justifying the decision not to allow any foreign ships to pass until the US ends its naval blockade on April 19, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said the “security of the Strait of Hormuz is not free”.

“One cannot restrict Iran’s oil exports while expecting free security for others,” he wrote in a post on X.

Last Saturday, Iran reportedly fired at two Indian-flagged merchant vessels in the strait. The IRGC said the two ships were attacked because they were “operating without authorisation”, according to state media reports.

Then, on April 22, Iran captured two container ships seeking to exit the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz after firing on them and another vessel.

What are the parallels between the two wars?

Just like during the Tanker War of the 1980s, shipping has been severely disrupted by the US-Israel war on Iran, upending global oil and gas prices.

According to an April 17 article by the World Economic Forum, from the mid-1980s when the Tanker War took place, to the start of the new millennium, a barrel of crude oil averaged $20.

On Friday, while a ceasefire between the US and Iran was in effect, a naval battle was still playing out in the Strait of Hormuz, and Brent crude, the international benchmark, topped $106 per barrel. During open warfare between the US, Israel and Iran in March and early April, oil rose as high as $119 per barrel.

Mines in the sea are another problem common to both time periods.

While vessels were damaged by mines during the 1980s Tanker War, there has so far been no report of vessels being damaged by mines in the current war. However, the risk is the same.

US President Donald Trump has said the US will ramp up efforts to remove mines from the Strait of Hormuz. This has not begun yet, however.

According to CNN, there are only a few US minesweeping ships in the Gulf. The US Navy also told the broadcaster that four dedicated minesweepers stationed in the Gulf region were decommissioned last year.

John Phillips, a British safety, security and risk adviser and former military instructor, told Al Jazeera: “There are some clear parallels between the current situation in Hormuz and the Tanker War of the 1980s. In both cases, the basic idea is the same: pressure at sea can have effects far beyond the water itself.

“A relatively small amount of naval disruption, whether that means mining, harassment of shipping, missile threats, or attacks on tankers, can create real strategic and economic consequences, especially in a chokepoint like the Strait of Hormuz. So in that sense, the original Tanker War is a useful reminder of how vulnerable global trade can be when the maritime domain becomes part of a wider political or military confrontation.”

What are the differences between the two wars?

During the Tanker War, the US escorted ships to protect them from Iranian attacks and also deployed vessels to remove mines. NATO countries like the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Italy also joined.

But in the current standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, US allies like the UK and other NATO nations have refused to join Washington in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, or begin minesweeping operations, fearing they will be dragged into the war.

In a post on Truth Social in early April, the US president took aim at allies, “like the United Kingdom”, which, he said, have “refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran”, telling them to either buy US fuel or get involved in the rapidly escalating war.

“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!” Trump wrote.

The framework of the US-Israel war on Iran is different from that of the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, experts say.

“In the 1980s, the Tanker War was part of the broader Iran-Iraq War, so the shipping attacks were tied to a much larger land conflict between two regional armies. Today, the situation is more about Iran’s standoff with the United States and its allies, and the maritime activity is less about asymmetrical war at sea and more about deterrence, signalling and the threat of escalation,” said Phillips.

“The military lesson, really, is that Hormuz is still one of those places where limited actions can have outsized effects, but the modern setting is more fast-moving, more technologically advanced and potentially more volatile than the original Tanker War,” he added.

Analysts have also pointed out that, unlike in the 1980s, Iran is currently stronger when it comes to withstanding attacks and naval blockades by the US.

In the Tanker War, Iraq was militarily supported by Western allies, while Iran was under a US arms embargo imposed in 1979 after the Iranian revolution. While this gave Iraq a military advantage, Iran’s IRGC used asymmetric warfare tactics by striking Iraq’s allies’ ships and oil tankers.

Experts also say that since the 12-day war between Iran and Israel last year, Tehran has shifted its military doctrine from one that is primarily about defensive containment to an explicitly offensive asymmetric posture.

“Iran today appears more structurally aggressive in doctrine where it is formally embracing earlier and more extensive use of regional missiles, drones, cyberattacks and energy coercion [when energy resources and infrastructure are targeted or cut off], but is operationally constrained by battle damage, sanctions and internal instability,” Phillips, the risk adviser and a former military chief instructor, told Al Jazeera in an interview on March 2.

A former US ambassador to Bahrain, Adam Ereli, also told Al Jazeera that Iran and the IRGC have “revolutionary fervour”, which means they can “survive”.

“They can tolerate pain for a lot longer than I think most American decision-makers and planners calculate,” he said.

United States President Donald Trump has claimed Iran is “collapsing financially” and said the country is losing millions of dollars a day due to Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday night, Trump wrote: “Iran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately – Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day. Military and Police complaining that they are not getting paid. SOS!!!”

The US blockade of Iranian ports began at 14:00 GMT on April 13. Since then, the US has fired on and seized an Iranian-flagged tanker near the Strait of Hormuz, and redirected ships in the open seas carrying cargo to or from Iran. Iran’s armed forces have called this “an illegal act” that “amounts to piracy”.

In response to the US naval blockade, Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to all foreign shipping and has captured several foreign-flagged ships. Previously, it had allowed some ships deemed “friendly” to Iran to pass.

On April 19, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said the “security of the Strait of Hormuz is not free”.

“One cannot restrict Iran’s oil exports while expecting free security for others,” he wrote in a post on X.

“The choice is clear: either a free oil market for all, or the risk of significant costs for everyone,” he added. “Stability in global fuel prices depends on a guaranteed and lasting end to the economic and military pressure against Iran and its allies.”

In a statement on social media on Thursday, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and lead negotiator in the ceasefire talks, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said a full ceasefire could only work if the US naval blockade is lifted.

Analysts say the blockade is hurting Iran but believe the country has the economic and political will to sustain it.

How long can Iran survive the naval blockade?

Here’s what we know:

How is the naval blockade hurting Iran?

Iran exports oil, gas and other goods including petrochemicals, plastics and agricultural products by sea. Analysts say the US naval blockade of its ports, including in the Strait of Hormuz, could therefore affect this trade.

Soon after the start of the US-Israel war on Iran on February 28, authorities in Tehran implemented the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the only waterway out of the Gulf, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies were shipped from Gulf producers in peacetime.

The near-shutdown of the vital chokepoint sent global oil and gas prices soaring, and since then, Iran has controlled the strait. However, it has continued to export its own energy products through the waterway.

Iran’s oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz account for about 80 percent of its total oil exports. According to Kpler, a trade intelligence firm, Iran exported 1.84 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in March and has shipped 1.71 million bpd so far in April, compared with an average of 1.68 million bpd in 2025.

From March 15 to April 14, it exported 55.22 million barrels of oil. The price per barrel of Iranian oil – across its three major variants, known as Iranian light, Iranian heavy and Forozan blend – has not fallen below $90 per barrel over the past month. On many days, the price has surpassed $100 a barrel.

Even at the conservative estimate of $90 a barrel, Iran has earned at least $4.97bn over the past month from its ongoing oil exports.

By contrast, in early February before the war started, Iran was earning about $115m a day from its crude oil exports, or $3.45bn in a month.

Simply put, Iran has earned 40 percent more from oil exports in the past month than it did before the war.

Stopping this is a key motivation behind the US naval blockade of Iranian ports.

In an interview with Al Jazeera on April 14, Frederic Schneider, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told Al Jazeera that the previous six weeks had been a boon for Iran in terms of oil revenues, but with the US blockade, that will change.

“Iran has some buffer in the form of crude oil reserves in floating tanks – basically parked tankers – which was estimated at about 127 million barrels in February. But that doesn’t mean that the blockade wouldn’t hurt Iran,” he said.

On Friday, Schneider told Al Jazeera that Iran, however, seems to be “playing the longer game” and has anticipated and prepared for this sort of conflict to some degree.

“The naval blockade has added economic strain, as several civilian ships have been captured in international waters. But it remains unclear how tight the blockade is, how many ships manage to pass given the considerable amount of floating Iranian oil, and how long Trump can maintain the blockade,” he said.

Can the US keep the blockade going for long?

Schneider noted that Trump will face a legislative challenge by May 1, when the 60 days he can maintain a foreign offensive without congressional approval come to an end.

Dire conditions have been reported on the ships that are upholding the blockade, he said, and it remains to be seen how China will react to the continuing seizure of ships that carry any of its cargo.

“China has already said it sees the blockade of Chinese trade with Iran as unacceptable. Further, the closure of Hormuz by Iran in retaliation is hurting, if not the US itself that much, American allies in the region and globally, raising the pressure on Trump,” he said.

“If we can glean anything from the behaviour of the two sides, it is Iran that is signalling patience and Trump showing impatience,” he added.

Adam Ereli, a former US ambassador to Bahrain, told Al Jazeera’s This is America programme that while the US blockade of Iranian ports and seizure of vessels transporting Iranian oil “makes sense” as a policy, it may not work as intended due to domestic political considerations in the US.

“The Iranians have prepared for this, for this eventuality. They have their own plans. They’ve got alternative means of storing their oil or selling their oil,” Ereli told Al Jazeera.

“Even if they ran out of oil, they have ways to survive a very tough blockade and sanctions regime that, frankly, I think will outlast Trump’s patience and the patience of the American people,” he said.

“Remember, this isn’t just about moving soldiers and ships and planes around on a map. There’s politics involved here in the United States,” he added.

“Trump is nothing if not attuned to the political winds. And for that reason, I think that you’ve got this Iran strategy on the one hand that runs up against an electoral strategy on another hand, and therefore, the question is, which one is going to give?”

Can Iran store the oil the US is blockading in the meantime?

Iran’s domestic refineries have a capacity of 2.6 million bpd, according to consultancy FGE Energy. Its oil and gas production facilities are concentrated in southwestern provinces: Khuzestan for oil and Bushehr for gas and condensate from the South Pars gasfield.

Iran is also the third-largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and exports 90 percent of its crude oil via Kharg Island for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The US naval blockade has begun affecting the country’s storage capacity, according to TankerTrackers, the maritime intelligence agency. The blockade means Iran has to store more oil, and space could become tight.

TankerTrackers said that on Kharg Island, to prepare for the possibility of running out of oil storage space, Iran has brought an old tanker named NASHA (9079107) out of retirement.

“She’s a 30yo [year old] VLCC [Very Large Crude Carrier] that’s been anchored empty for the past few years; currently spending 4 days on a trip that should take 1.5-2 days,” TankerTrackers said in a post on X, suggesting that the tanker is being used to store oil. It is unclear if the ship has a heading or course.

Can Iran continue to earn revenues from oil?

Yes, analysts say that for a few months, Iran can continue to earn revenue from oil which is already in transit at sea.

Kenneth Katzman, former Iran analyst at the Congressional Research Service in Washington, DC, said Iran is not exporting new oil amid the US blockade of Iranian ports, but Tehran has between 160 million and 170 million barrels of oil “afloat” on ships around the world currently.

Those supplies, which transited the Strait of Hormuz before the US blockade was imposed, are on board hundreds of tankers and “waiting to be delivered”, Katzman told Al Jazeera.

Katzman said he had been informed by an Iranian professor that, based on those supplies, Tehran could have revenue flows that can last until August despite the US naval blockade.

“Which is a long time. Does President Trump have until August? Probably not,” he said.

“He’s probably going to have to look at kinetic escalation if he wants to bring this to the conclusion that he wants, or he’s going to have to accept less than the deal he ideally wants,” he said.

Iranian ships will still have to avoid US naval ships on the open ocean, as the US Navy has also recently intercepted ships carrying Iranian cargoes.

On Wednesday this week, for example, the US military intercepted at least three Iranian-flagged tankers in ‌Asian waters, Reuters reported, and was said to be redirecting them away from their positions near India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

How else can Iran earn revenue?

Besides oil revenue, Iran is also currently receiving revenue from a “toll booth” system that the country imposed on the Strait of Hormuz in March.

On Thursday, Iran’s deputy parliament speaker Hamidreza Haji-Babaei said Tehran’s central bank had received the first revenues from tolls imposed since the start of the war, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. It is unclear how much that toll revenue is.

Iranian politician Alaeddin Boroujerdi told the United Kingdom-based, Farsi-language satellite TV channel Iran International in March that the country has been charging some vessels as much as $2m each to pass through the strait.

According to Lloyd’s List, the shipping news outlet, at least two vessels that have transited the strait so far have paid fees in yuan, China’s currency. Lloyd’s List reported that one “transit was brokered by a Chinese maritime services company acting as an intermediary, which also handled the payment to Iranian authorities”. It is, however, not clear how much the vessels paid.

How resilient is Iran’s leadership?

In recent days, while pressuring Iran to negotiate a ceasefire deal, US President Donald Trump has claimed that Iranians are “having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is”, alleging that there is “crazy” infighting between “moderates” and “hardliners” in Tehran.

But the country’s officials have insisted that Iran’s government is united.

Mohammad Reza Aref, Iran’s first vice president, said on Thursday: “Our political diversity is our democracy, yet in times of peril, we are a ‘Single Hand’ under one flag. To protect our soil and dignity, we transcend all labels. We are one soul, one nation.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also dismissed allegations that the Iranian military may be at odds with the political leadership.

“The failure of Israel’s terrorist killings is reflected in how Iran’s state institutions continue to act with unity, purpose, and discipline,” he wrote on X, referring to the assassinations of Iranian political and military figures Israel has carried out in recent weeks.

“The battlefield and diplomacy are fully coordinated fronts in the same war. Iranians are all united, more than ever before.”

One of the strongest messages of unity came from Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian.

“In Iran, there are no radicals or moderates,” he said on X.

“We are all Iranians and revolutionaries. With ironclad unity of nation and state and obedience to the Supreme Leader, we will make the aggressor regret.”

How strong is Iran militarily?

Iran has demonstrated considerable military resilience in the face of weeks of US-Israeli strikes through its use of asymmetric warfare.

This includes the use of guerrilla tactics, cyberattacks, arming and supporting proxy armed groups and other indirect tools.

During its war with the US and Israel, Iran has targeted energy infrastructure in Israel and across the Gulf, threatened to target banking institutions and targeted US data centres of technology companies such as Amazon in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Iran has also blocked the Strait of Hormuz and reportedly placed mines in the strait to disrupt shipping, sending global oil prices soaring.

Since the US began its naval blockade of Iranian ports in mid-April, Iranian officials have repeatedly promised that their country will defend itself and respond to any US attack.

Earlier this week, after the US military said it had seized an Iranian vessel and ordered dozens of others to turn around, Iran also retaliated by capturing foreign commercial vessels around the Hormuz Strait, which it said violated naval regulations.

Ereli, the former US ambassador, told Al Jazeera that Iran and the IRGC have “revolutionary fervour”, which means they can “survive”. “They can tolerate pain for a lot longer than I think most American decision makers and planners calculate,” Ereli said.

Ereli said it was unknown how long Tehran could last under “siege conditions” imposed by the US, but probably a lot longer than the US anticipates.

“I think they can go a lot longer, especially than most people imagine, and especially when it comes to kneeling to the Americans,” Ereli said.

“There’s a level of pride and survival. They’re at war with us, and for them it’s a war of necessity. They’ve got to survive,” he added.