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 immediately verified. A spokesperson for US Central Command did not immediately return Al-Monitor’s request for comment.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. State media reported 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.US Vice President JD 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.
US to begin lifting naval blockade of Iran, Trump says
While the precise timeline remains unclear, the Trump administration is set to dismantle its blockade of Iranian ports in exchange for Iran lifting its threats to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.














