Iran's 'trump card' in Pakistan peace talks – the Strait of Hormuz

Kim Hjelmgaard and Michael Collins, USA TODAYSat, April 11, 2026 at 7:00 AM UTC

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Iran enters high-stakes peace talks in Pakistan this weekend holding more leverage than it has managed to wield at any time during its six-week war: It has taken control over the Strait of Hormuz.

The narrow, 100-mile-long waterway is the primary channel through which 20% of world’s oil and natural gas supply must pass. By deciding which ships can travel through the passageway – and which can’t – Iran has the power to disrupt global energy markets and inflict pain on its adversaries across the world.

The U.S. demands that Iran reopen the waterway are one of the focal points of the peace talks that opened Saturday, Apr. 11. Negotiators for the two countries are trying to turn a fragile, two-week ceasefire into a lasting peace plan.

Here’s a closer look at how the U.S.-Israel war with Iran has reshaped the world – and, in some cases, how it hasn’t.

1 / 0Latest photos capture US and Israeli strikes against Iran

Smoke rises following an explosion, after Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, February 28, 2026.

No straight passage through the Strait of Hormuz

Before the war, oil tankers and cargo ships passed freely through the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. But days after the start of the war, Iran effectively blocked the strait, restricting the number of ships that could travel through the channel and reportedly charging fees of up to $2 million per ship for those vessels that did.

Iran’s blockage of the passageway caused a major disruption in global energy markets, causing a spike in oil and gas prices.

A cargo ship in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from northern Ras al-Khaimah, near the border with Oman’s Musandam governance, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in United Arab Emirates, March 11, 2026.

Reopening the passageway was one of the key U.S. conditions for the two-week ceasefire announced on Apr. 7. But Iran has allowed only a trickle of ships to continue through the channel since the pause in fighting. As a condition for ending the war, Iran is demanding the right to collect tolls from ships that traverse the strait.

President Donald Trump has sent mixed signals on the tolls. He has called them illegal and a violation of the ceasefire and said Iran should stop charging them. But in an interview with ABC News, he suggested the tolls could possibly continue as part of a joint venture between Iran and the United States. Tolls could be a way to secure the passageway, he said.

Strait of Hormuz. You may pay more for gas after Iran closes oil route

Iran's closure of the strait has shifted the focus of the peace talks away from ending its nuclear program, which had been one of Trump's justifications for the war, to the need to get ships moving through the channel unimpeded once again.

Brent Crude oil, a global benchmark, was trading at about $72 per barrel on Feb. 28. Prices surged to almost $120 per barrel in late March before dropping to just under $100 per barrel on April 10 after the U.S and Iran reached a conditional two-week ceasefire agreement.

All eyes are on the Strait of Hormuz, closed again by Iran a day after the ceasefire. How oil and gas prices may be affected.

While the U.S. is far less reliant on foreign oil compared to other countries in Europe and elsewhere, the elevated global prices have impacted domestic gasoline prices. On April, the average cost in the U.S. for a gallon of regular gasoline was $4.15, according to AAA Gas Prices, which tracks retail gasoline prices. That's up from $3.45 a month ago and less than $3 at the start of the year, according to AAA Gas Prices.

A changed Iranian regime?

Iranians hold portraits of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader, during a memorial in Tehran on April 9, 2026. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, 2026.

The war has severely weakened Iran's clerical, military and political leadership. Many of its top intelligence and security officials and its longtime supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been killed in the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign.

Trump has asserted that Iran's new rulers are more moderate. There's little evidence of that. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s newly appointed supreme leader, has not appeared publicly since taking over from his father, and many analysts believe the country may move toward stronger ideological rigidity and increased control by hardline military forces within the government.

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Iranian military degraded, but still functioning

U.S. forces have inflicted serious damage on Iran’s military during six weeks of bombing. Iran’s Navy is gone, “lying at the bottom of the ocean,” Trump boasted. Iran’s ability to build and stockpile ballistic missiles and long-range drones has been set back for years, according to the White House. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that Iran’s military had been so degraded following more than 13,000 strikes by U.S. forces that it had essentially been wiped out and would be ineffective for years.

Defense analysts say there’s no question Iran’s military has been weakened by the U.S. attacks. Yet it has continued to operate, using medium- and short-range missiles to strike Israel and neighboring Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

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Iranian forces shot down two American military planes – an F-15E fighter jet and an A-10 Warthog – on April 3, prompting a massive search and rescue mission for a weapon systems officer who had been in the F-15E. Airmen in both planes ejected from the aircraft and were quickly rescued. Trump said the F-15E had been shot down by a shoulder-mounted, heat-seeking missile.

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Accounting for Iran's nuclear materials

A combination of satellite images showing tunnel entrances at the Isfahan nuclear complex, in Isfahan, Iran, before they were buried with soil, November 11, 2024 (top), and after, February 10, 2026

Prior to the start of the war, Iran possessed approximately 440kg of uranium enriched to 60%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation's nuclear watchdog. That material is theoretically a short technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the IAEA. While Iran insists that its nuclear program is for civilian energy purposes only, few in the West believe that.

Highly-enriched uranium can be used for nuclear-armed bombs and missies. Most of Iran's enriched uranium is thought to be stored at a nuclear site deep underground near the city of Isfahan, one of three nuclear sites U.S. bombers targeted last year.

There has been speculation that Trump has considered sending U.S. troops or special forces to seize Iran's enriched uranium as part of his vow to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons.

Trita Parsi, an Iran expert who is the co-founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said there are conflicting reports about the current state of Iran's nuclear materials. "It appears the U.S. government believes it knows where it is and that the Iranians have not accessed it," he said.

Iranian security expert Ali Vaez of the Brussels-headquartered Crisis Group think tank said Iran's nuclear materials are unaccounted for and probably buried in deep tunnels. He said that, as it stands, the war has "set back Iran’s nuclear program, but hasn't fully blocked its pathway to nuclear weapons."

Iran's mega-MAGA impact

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, left, and Tucker Carlson.

While polls show most Republicans support the war in Iran, Trump has gotten pushback from an unexpected place: his MAGA supporters.

Grassroots activists and high-profile media figures in MAGA world have publicly slammed the war, saying it runs counter to his “America First” campaign promise. They also have taken issue with everything from Trump’s use of profanity in his wartime social media posts, his apocalyptic threat to wipe out the Iranian civilization and the whopping cost of the conflict. (The price tag: $29 billion so far, according to the nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies.)

"He has gone insane," former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a Trump supporter turned critic, wrote in a message on X.

Trump has fired back, calling his critics “losers” and accusing conservative media influencers such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Alex Jones of digging for cheap publicity.

But the MAGA rift could have serious consequences for Trump and Republicans heading into this fall’s midterm elections, when the GOP will try to hold onto its slim majorities in the House and the Senate.

Reluctant allies and NATO future

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte discusses strengthen the alliance and sharing responsibility for global security.

The war has appeared to deepen divisions between the U.S. and some of its traditional allies. France, Spain, Germany and Britain have in particular been reluctant to always heed calls by the Trump administration for air support and use of their military bases. Non-U.S. NATO members have also been resistant to help the U.S. militarily as Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump, in turn, has called American allies "cowards." He has characterized NATO as "a paper tiger" and re-upped his threats to leave the military alliance formed in the wake of World War II. He has also compared British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Neville Chamberlain, now widely known as the British leader who pursued a policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany.

U.S. allies have struggled to understand Trump's strategy, motivations and regular contradictory statements about the reasons for the war, even as they have agreed with him that's Iran regime is a menace for the wider Middle East region and that Tehran should not be permitted to advance its nuclear program.

"This war violates international law," German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in late March, echoing comments from other European leaders. "There is little doubt that, in any case, the justification of an imminent attack on the U.S. does not hold water," he said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Iran’s Strait of Hormuz control raises stakes for Pakistan talks

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