Hormuz ceasefire nears its deadline as pressure widens
As the US-Iran ceasefire approaches expiry, talks are frozen; Washington’s sovereignty claim, Canadian sanctions and attacks on UAE vessels are pushing the Hormuz confrontation beyond the negotiating table.
Geopolitics··Morning
The ceasefire ends Monday with no movement at the table
A senior White House official told Politico that US-Iran negotiations remain static and that no extension had been heard of by Friday afternoon. The ceasefire is set to expire on Monday. Iranian negotiators say the deadlock continues over frozen Iranian assets and over ship movements in the Strait of Hormuz, including the American blockade. The same official described Iran’s negotiating structure as split three ways among the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the clergy and the government, so an agreement with one group does not bind the others. Tehran has added compensation for war damage and the release of frozen assets to its demands. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Newsmax that Washington will open an economic isolation campaign next week. James Jeffrey, a former ambassador in the region, said both sides still prefer the ceasefire and blockade to the alternatives on offer. Control of the waterway and the assets question therefore remain the unresolved knots days before the deadline.[2]
A sovereignty claim and the legal line through the strait
Speaking at a police training centre in Nassau County, New York, Donald Trump said that once Iran is defeated he will declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States and called the American blockade a wall of steel. Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, rejected the claim the same day, writing that the strait cannot be taken over by a social media post, an aircraft carrier, a decree or an election speech. Al Jazeera reports that legal experts treat tolls on traffic through the strait as a breach of the international rules protecting free maritime transit, and that roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply moves through it. Control of the waterway has remained a major sticking point in the ceasefire talks that have run since the war opened on 28 February. Trump’s sovereignty language sharpens the question of who would hold the strait on the frozen negotiating table described by Politico.[1], [2]
Sanctions and ship attacks widen the pressure
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand listed five senior Iranian officials, among them members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, under the Special Economic Measures (Iran) Regulations for military, legal and communications activity that has threatened navigation rights in and around the strait. Anand said freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz is essential to global trade and energy security. Canada has now sanctioned 232 Iranian individuals and 260 Iranian entities under those regulations; the release cites an International Maritime Organization count of 20,000 seafarers unable to leave the Persian Gulf as of 24 April 2026. Canadians are barred from dealing with the listed people and any Canadian assets they hold are frozen. In the same window, Abu Dhabi’s foreign ministry called Thursday evening’s attack on two ADNOC vessels a hostile Iranian act and described it as piracy. ADNOC confirmed the attack through the state agency WAM without naming an attacker; no one was hurt. The ministry said the Revolutionary Guard was using the strait as a tool of economic pressure. It is the second such incident involving ADNOC ships in under a week; the company says its vessels have been attacked repeatedly since the conflict began in February. Independent confirmation of who carried out the attack is not available, and Iran has not responded. The approaching ceasefire deadline, sovereignty rhetoric, allied sanctions and commercial ship attacks are therefore stacking on the same waterway.[3], [4]
