US to begin lifting naval blockade of Iran, Trump says

WASHINGTON — The United States is poised to fully lift its naval blockade of Iran’s ports as long as Iran takes steps to demonstrate it no longer poses a threat to commercial shipping in the waterway, US officials said.

President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz would be fully opened starting Friday, June 19, once the planned signing of the framework agreement to end the war between the US and Iran is complete.

In a separate social media post, Trump wrote, “I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” Trump said in the prior post that de-mining sweeps would begin once Iran opens the strait.

The precise sequencing of the process could not be independently verified. A spokesperson for US Central Command did not immediately return Al-Monitor’s request for comment.

A senior administration official told reporters later on Monday that the memorandum "provides for the immediate opening of the Strait of Hormuz and the combined lifting of the naval blockade," but noted that it will take "a little bit of time because you have mines in the straits [and] you have ships that have different risk tolerances."

"We probably won't return to normal in two weeks, but we will see a significant increase in strait traffic," the senior official said.

A second senior US official on the same call with reporters estimated commercial traffic through the strait would "return to normal pretty quickly, definitely within 30 days once [Iran has] committed to get rid of all the mines."

"We know where all the mines are at this point, and we could actually help them" clean up the munitions, the second official added.

Sustained US military presence 

The US will maintain its current military presence in the Middle East’s Gulf region throughout planned negotiations with Iran over reining in its nuclear enrichment program, a senior US official said Monday.

“The plan is to keep current force posture during the succeeding negotiations,” the senior official told journalists on a conference call.

“We ramped up a lot of forces in the region to prepare for the operation in February. We hope to draw them down, but we’re not doing that yet,” the official said.

“We want to see, again, the Iranians do what they promise[d],” the official added.

The current framework agreement signed virtually by US Vice President JD Vance and Iranian parliament speaker Mohammed Ghalibaf “contemplates the reduction of military forces in the region upon the agreement of a final deal,” the senior official explained.

The memorandum, which has yet to be released by either side and which both sides will formally sign on Friday in Geneva, sets up a further 60-day ceasefire for preliminary negotiations to address the major disputes that led to the conflict.

More than 50,000 US military personnel participated in the five-plus week US and Israeli war against Iran, which Iranian state-aligned organizations have claimed killed at least 2,000 civilians. Thirteen US military personnel, largely Army soldiers, were also killed during the conflict.

There remain two US Navy aircraft carriers in the region; dozens of fighter jets, refueling tankers, unmanned drones and electronic warfare aircraft; as well as THAAD and PATRIOT missile defense batteries, at least one US Marine Corps amphibious assault group and special operations forces along with elements of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Rough outline of a deal

Trump announced last week that Iran’s leaders had agreed to final details of a framework proposal to end the war, which began Feb. 28 with surprise US and Israeli naval and airstrikes on Iran.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement on Sunday the two sides would convene to sign the framework agreement on Friday in Geneva, a step toward resuming negotiations over Iran’s nuclear enrichment.

Yet key matters of dispute remain unresolved. Iran’s leaders have not confirmed they will discuss proposals to surrender their enriched uranium stockpiles, as Trump has publicly demanded.

Trump, who earlier in the war said he would accept nothing less than Iran’s total surrender, told the New York Times in an interview that the expected negotiations would result in future commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz being “permanently toll-free.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry cast doubt on that claim, however on Sunday. State-aligned Fars News reported Monday that the 60-day ceasefire to be signed Friday would entail the lifting of toll charges through the strait for the same period, but that Iran and Oman would administer traffic through the key economic waterway thereafter — a proposition the White House has repeatedly rejected.

Vance said on Monday that the Trump administration would work out those details once negotiations get underway.

“Our expectation is that the strait is going to be opened in a toll-free way for the long term, and that's the sort of thing that we're going to figure out in these technical negotiations,” Vance told CNBC early on Monday.