Direct negotiations between the United States and Iran could resume within days, President Donald Trump said Tuesday, as American warships tighten their grip on oil traffic around the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran responds with threats to close three of the region's most critical waterways.

The talks — mediated through Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey — are racing against an April 21 ceasefire deadline. Pakistani Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir traveled to Tehran carrying a message from Washington, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said after the meeting that Tehran remained "committed to promoting peace and stability in the region." The White House denied it had requested a ceasefire extension, while acknowledging that key differences have not been bridged.

The diplomatic pressure operates against a deteriorating economic backdrop for Iran. U.S. Central Command claims its naval blockade has "completely halted" Iran's maritime trade, though the picture is more complicated: the sanctioned supertanker Alicia passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, empty, heading toward Iraq to load two million barrels of crude. It has been moving Iranian oil regularly since 2023, part of what analysts describe as a shadow fleet that routes cargo through dark transits to Asian buyers. Before the war, more than 130 vessels crossed the strait daily; traffic is now a fraction of that figure.

Tehran has answered the blockade with a direct threat. General Ali Abdollahi Aliabad, chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' joint command, warned that if the "illegal maritime blockade" continues, Iran would act to halt all exports and imports across the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Red Sea. Iran's parliament is also advancing legislation to establish a Hormuz transit-fee regime modeled on the Panama Canal and the Bosphorus — a move that would formalize Iranian leverage over one of the world's most important chokepoints.

Iran's oil exports remain the central battleground. Economists warn that sustained interdiction could inflict lasting damage on an economy already strained by sanctions, war costs, and internal unrest, but the shadow fleet has so far blunted the blockade's full effect.

In Washington, a separate diplomatic thread moved forward when Israeli and Lebanese delegations met for three hours — the first such direct contact since 1993. The two sides, which maintain no formal diplomatic relations, agreed to open direct negotiations at a time and place to be determined. The session was notably narrow in scope: Israeli government spokesman David Mencer ruled out any discussion of a ceasefire with Hezbollah, which he described as a terrorist organization still firing on Israeli civilians. Lebanese Hezbollah's legal representative Hassan Fadlallah warned that Beirut was "heading down the wrong path."

Israel's stated objective is the disarmament of all non-state armed groups operating in Lebanon. Lebanon's delegation pushed for a halt to hostilities and measures to address the humanitarian crisis.

The concurrent tracks — Iran-U.S. nuclear and ceasefire diplomacy, a maritime confrontation threatening global energy flows, and nascent Israeli-Lebanese talks — reflect how thoroughly the region's security architecture has been rearranged since the conflict began. Whether the pieces can be assembled into a durable settlement before April 21 remains, in the careful formulation of U.S. officials, uncertain.