Irán cierra Ormuz nuevamente tras 24 horas; Trump advierte que no puede "chantajear" a EE.UU.

The Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical shipping lanes, opened on Friday under Iranian control. By Saturday morning, it was closed again. The reversal came less than twenty-four hours after Tehran had announced it would permit a limited number of tankers and commercial vessels through the waterway—a decision that had briefly lifted markets and sparked optimism in Washington, where President Trump told news agencies that a broader peace agreement between the United States and Iran was "very close."

But the opening did not hold. Iran's military command announced Saturday that it had returned the strait to its previous state of strict Iranian control, citing what it called continued American "piracy" under the guise of a naval blockade. The Islamic Republic had acted in good faith, the statement said, authorizing passage for a limited fleet. The Americans, it claimed, had responded by maintaining their blockade against Iranian ports and vessels. The situation had become untenable. The passage was closed again.

While Iran made its announcement, Britain's maritime authority reported that at least two merchant ships had come under fire from Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels patrolling the strait. The attacks caused fires aboard the vessels, though no crew members were injured. A tanker captain reported being intercepted by two fast-attack boats thirty-seven kilometers northeast of Oman. Without radio warning, the boats opened fire. The British maritime operations center confirmed the incident and noted that shipping traffic had been disrupted. Iran's military also issued a stark warning: any vessel attempting to approach the strait would be considered a collaborator with the enemy and treated as a target.

Trump responded with characteristic bluntness. Speaking at an event in the White House, he acknowledged that Iran had tried to close the strait again—something they had done "for years," he said—but insisted that Tehran could not use such tactics to pressure Washington. "Iran cannot blackmail the United States," he declared, though he also noted that conversations with the Iranian regime were proceeding and that the Iranians had "gotten a little clever." The warning was clear: the administration would not be moved by Iranian threats.

Behind the public posturing, the diplomatic machinery was grinding to a halt. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Iran's delegation at talks in Islamabad, acknowledged that while some points of agreement had been reached with the Americans, "important differences" remained on key issues. Iran's vice foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, told the Associated Press that his country was not yet ready for another round of face-to-face negotiations. The United States, he said, had not abandoned what Iran considered "maximalist" demands on crucial matters. Tehran wanted to finalize a framework agreement first. Without that foundation, he suggested, another meeting would be pointless—merely another opportunity for escalation.

The military picture underscored why both sides were digging in. According to American military and intelligence officials cited by the New York Times, Iran had retained roughly forty percent of its drone arsenal and sixty percent of its missile stockpile despite weeks of warfare. Despite losses to its naval fleet and missile production facilities, Iran retained sufficient resources to maintain control of the strait. Iran's Supreme National Security Council made this explicit: Tehran would keep the strait under its supervision until the war ended. If the enemy attempted to interrupt maritime traffic or impose a blockade, the council stated, Iran would consider it a violation of the ceasefire and would prevent any conditional, limited opening of the passage.

The human toll continued to mount. Iran's government-affiliated Martyrs Foundation announced that more than 3,400 people had died since the conflict began on February 28th. In Lebanon, a French UN peacekeeper was killed and three others wounded in an attack on Saturday while conducting demining operations in the south. French President Emmanuel Macron blamed Hezbollah, though the militant group denied any involvement and called for caution before assigning responsibility. The UN mission opened an investigation, noting that initial assessments pointed to "non-state actors." Meanwhile, Israeli forces reported that a reserve sergeant major, Barak Kalfon, forty-eight years old, had died from wounds sustained in combat in southern Lebanon on Friday. At least 939 Israeli military personnel had been killed since the war began. In southern Lebanon, thousands of displaced families remained unable to return home. The Qasmiye bridge, bombed hours before the ceasefire took effect, hung by a thread of earth passable only by foot or motorcycle. Excavators worked to repair the massive crater while vehicles full of displaced people turned around repeatedly, joining long convoys that detoured toward a secondary bridge already patched by the army.