Donald TrumpDaniel Torok, White House Spokespesron
Israel recently passed a message to the Trump administration warning that any easing of the naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz will be interpreted by Tehran as weakness, Channel 12 News reported.
Such a move, even if partial or temporary, would not lead to flexibility on Tehran’s part, the sources stressed, according to the report.
Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem warned that the Iranians are expected to entrench their positions and use any concessions to improve their starting point for continued confrontation, rather than pursue a true disarmament agreement.
On Sunday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a Cabinet meeting aiming to solidify an Israeli strategy for potentially extreme situations.
The US Army has already formulated a plan in case negotiations for a deal with Iran explode and fighting resumes. According to CNN, the Pentagon formulated a detailed attack plan for immediate execution in case the ceasefire collapses. The main focus of the plan is the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran continues to threaten global shipping routes.
Trump to meet with national security, foreign policy teams to discuss proposal, report says, as oil prices rise after failed attempt to restart negotiations over the weekend
In this picture obtained from Iran’s ISNA news agency on April 24, 2026, an Iranian man rides his motorcycle past a boat at Suru Beach in Bandar Abbas along the Strait of Hormuz. (Razieh Poudat/ISNA/AFP)
Iran has proposed a deal with the United States to reach an agreement on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the war, while delaying negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program to a later stage, according to a report Sunday, after hoped-for talks in Pakistan over the weekend failed to materialize.
The Axios report, citing a US official and two sources familiar with the matter, was published as Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi briefly returned to Islamabad after visiting Oman on Saturday, despite US President Donald Trump signaling that he did not plan to dispatch a negotiating team anytime soon.
Instead, after calling off a planned delegation to Pakistan at the last minute the previous day, the president said on Sunday that the Iranian team could reach Washington by phone if they wished to speak, and Araghchi departed Pakistan again, this time headed for Russia.
According to Axios, Iran’s attempt to kickstart negotiations again by solving the issues centered on the Strait of Hormuz was conveyed to the US by Pakistani mediators.
The strait — the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passes — has been at the center of a standoff ever since a ceasefire between Iran and the US and Israel entered into effect on April 8, as Iran has restricted movement through it and the US imposed a blockade of Iranian ports.
Trump was expected to discuss the Iranian proposal and other issues held up in the stalled negotiations during a Situation Room meeting with national security and foreign policy teams on Monday, Axios said.
But resolving the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, lifting the US blockade and allowing Iran’s oil exports to flow again would leave Trump and Washington without much leverage for future negotiations.
A woman walks past anti-US graffiti painted on the wall of the Tehran University on Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) Street in downtown Tehran, Iran, April 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
It is also unclear whether Trump would agree to push off the nuclear talks to an unspecified later date, given that he has repeatedly insisted that he will settle for nothing less than Tehran’s commitment to ending its nuclear activities.
The status of Iran’s enriched uranium has long been at the center of tensions. Tehran has 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels, with no peaceful application.
Israel, which has not been involved in the negotiations in Pakistan, has also insisted that the US must put an end to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions as part of any deal to end the fighting.
Araghchi drops by Russia
Meanwhile, Iran’s top diplomat landed in St. Petersburg on Monday for the final leg of his regional tour.
Iranian state media reported that Araghchi would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials to discuss bilateral ties and regional issues, including the war.
Araghchi said the consultations in Pakistan over the weekend had reviewed conditions under which Iran-US talks could resume, stressing that Tehran would seek to secure its rights and national interests following weeks of conflict.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, left, meets with Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, in Muscat, Oman, April 26, 2026. (Iranian Foreign Ministry via AP)
He made no mention of the reported proposal to push off nuclear negotiations for the time being in favor of focusing on the Strait of Hormuz.
He said, though, that Iran and Oman, as coastal states of the strait, had agreed to continue expert-level consultations to ensure safe transit and protect shared interests in the waterway.
Tehran is hoping to persuade Oman to support a mechanism to collect tolls from vessels passing through the strait, according to a regional official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
Oman’s response wasn’t immediately clear.
The official, who is involved in mediation efforts, also said Iran is insisting on ending the US blockade before a new round of talks on the remaining issues begins — apparently giving credence to the Axios report, albeit from a different perspective. They said Pakistani-led mediators were trying to bridge significant gaps between the countries.
Araghchi also spoke by phone with counterparts in Qatar and Saudi Arabia on Sunday.
Oil prices rise as hope dims
But his attempts to muster support for resolving the crisis in the strait appeared to have little effect, as oil prices were up more than 1% on Monday, with benchmark Brent crude futures rising $1.35, or 1.3%, to $106.68 a barrel, retreating from early session gains of over $2 a barrel.
US West Texas Intermediate was at $95.35 a barrel, up 95 cents, or 1%.
Brent and WTI gained nearly 17% and 13%, respectively, the biggest weekly gains since the start of the war, last week, before hopes of reviving peace talks receded over the weekend.
Oil prices have risen steadily since Israel and US launched the opening strikes of the war on February 28, and tankers full of crude became stranded in the Persian Gulf, unable to safely transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
Even with a fragile truce having paused the direct fighting between the warring sides, the economic fallout of the war is still growing, as global shipments of oil, liquefied natural gas, fertilizer and other supplies are disrupted by the near-closure of the strategic strait.
Iranians walk past a giant billboard reading “the Strait of Hormuz remains closed,” at Revolution Square in Tehran on April 22, 2026. (Atta Kenare/AFP)
Both sides have also continued to make military threats. Iran’s joint military command Saturday warned that “if the US continues its aggressive military actions, including naval blockades, banditry, and piracy,” it will face a “strong response.”
Trump last week ordered the military to “shoot and kill” small boats that could be placing mines in the waterway.
He told journalists on Saturday, before a security incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, that within 10 minutes of his cancelling his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s trip to Islamabad, Iran sent a “much better” proposal.
He did not elaborate but stressed again that one of his conditions is that Iran “will not have a nuclear weapon.”
The U.S. is racing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as Iran threatens one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes, testing a Navy that has recently retired most of its dedicated minesweepers and is now relying on a smaller fleet of unmanned systems to do the job.
President Donald Trump has warned Tehran against further escalation and signaled the U.S. is prepared to act to keep the strait open, while Iranian forces have laid mines and threatened commercial traffic in the narrow waterway that carries a significant share of global oil.
The confrontation is now testing a weakness in the Navy’s mine-warfare posture. As the U.S. moves to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian mining threats, it is doing so after retiring most of the ships once dedicated to that mission and while still relying on a limited mix of legacy vessels and newer unmanned systems to clear one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.
At the current moment, any mine-clearing effort is unfolding amid an active standoff in the strait. The U.S. has imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports, while Iran has responded with attacks on commercial vessels, seizures of ships and threats to close the waterway entirely.
The merchant vessel Seaway Hawk sails in the Persian Gulf while transporting decommissioned U.S. Navy Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships, USS Devastator, USS Dextrous, USS Gladiator and USS Sentry. (Petty Officer 2nd Class Iain Page /U.S. Naval Forces Central Command / U.S. 5th Fleet)
At least several commercial ships have come under fire in recent days, and both sides have intercepted vessels as they attempt to move through the choke point, underscoring the risks facing any operation to restore traffic.
Iran has tied further negotiations to the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, while Washington has insisted on security guarantees and reopening the strait, leaving little immediate path to a deal.
The operation comes after a major shift in how the Navy handles mine warfare. The service retired its four Bahrain-based minesweepers last year, ending a decades-long presence of dedicated mine-hunting ships in the Middle East.
At the start of the current crisis, the Navy’s remaining minesweepers were based in Japan, not the Persian Gulf, and newer littoral combat ships equipped for mine countermeasures were not all positioned in the region.
Multiple news outlets have reported Iran has laid at least a dozen mines in the strait, citing intelligence assessments, though some estimates put the number higher.
Now, as the U.S. moves to reopen the strait, some of those assets are being brought back in. Two Avenger-class mine countermeasure ships, USS Chief and USS Pioneer, were tracked sailing west from Southeast Asia toward the Middle East in recent days as preparations for mine-clearing operations ramp up.
Image shows the Turkish Navy’s version of the mine-sweeping drone. (Ali Atmaca/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The shift has left the Navy relying on a mix of legacy ships being surged into theater and newer unmanned systems designed to detect and neutralize mines.
“To be honest, that the minesweepers retired was never a concern to me, because we had brought in newer technology,” retired Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan, who previously commanded the Navy’s 5th Fleet, told Fox News Digital.
But analysts say the Navy is still working through a transition as it replaces its older minesweepers with newer systems.
“We’re sort of at this nadir of the Navy’s mine sweeping capacity,” Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, told Fox News Digital.
Clark said the Navy has spent years developing unmanned systems to replace legacy ships, but currently has a limited number of those systems available for large-scale operations.
U.S. forces are not sending ships blindly into minefields. Instead, the operation begins with a wave of unmanned systems scanning the seabed to identify potential threats.
Underwater drones — some torpedo-shaped — are deployed in grid patterns to map the ocean floor and detect objects that could be mines, using high-resolution sonar to distinguish them from debris.
“They kind of look like torpedoes and they map the bottom,” Donegan said.
In parallel, surface drones tow sonar systems through narrow lanes, while helicopters equipped with sensors scan for mines closer to the surface, allowing the Navy to build a detailed picture of what is actually in the water.
“The mine neutralization part is really the long leg of the process,” Clark said.
Once a mine is located, operators deploy remotely controlled systems to disable it — either by detonating it in place or puncturing it so it sinks. Even then, the danger is not fully removed.
“You’ve got to then retrieve this thing with EOD personnel,” Clark said, referring to explosive ordnance disposal teams tasked with clearing debris that can still pose a hazard to passing ships.
The U.S. Navy has currently launched a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz amid a standoff with Iran. (Photo by Stephanie Contreras- U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
Clearing mines remains a slow and methodical process that can stretch timelines depending on how many devices are in the water and how they are deployed.
The Pentagon has told Congress the effort could take as long as six months, according to a Washington Post report.
Clark said recent war-gaming suggests U.S. forces could identify and begin neutralizing mines within weeks, but fully removing them from key shipping lanes could take significantly longer.
“The finding part, you could do within a couple of weeks,” he said, adding that neutralizing mines could take additional time and that removing debris and ensuring lanes are completely safe could extend operations into months.
Donegan cautioned that timelines are difficult to predict, in part because U.S. forces must first confirm whether mines are actually present in the areas Iran has claimed.
“When somebody says they mined it, you have to go validate if that’s even true, and that takes time,” he said.
