Welcome to the News Hour. The U.S. began a blockade of Iranian ports today, less than two days after a first effort at peace talks between the Americans and Iran failed in Pakistan.

White House correspondent Liz Landers begins our coverage.

Today, in the Strait of Hormuz, it was the U.S. Navy that said it will enforce a blockade.

A choke point for roughly 20% of the world's oil, now a bargaining chip caught in the middle of an impossible negotiation.

The U.S. said it would block all ships entering or leaving Iranian ports.

President Trump issued a direct threat, warning that if any Iranian vessel

comes close to the U.S. blockade, it will be, quote, immediately eliminated. And today said

there will be no deal until Iran gives up its highly enriched uranium.

If they don't agree, there's no deal, there'll never be a deal. Iran will not have a nuclear

weapon and we're going to get the dust

back. We'll get it back either. We'll get it back from them or we'll take it. The escalation

follows the failure of 21 hours of marathon talks in Islamabad this weekend. The negotiations were

meant to turn a fragile ceasefire into a broader agreement. Instead, both sides walked away, blaming each other.

The bad news is that we have not reached the agreement, and I think that's bad news for Iran much

more than it's bad news for the United States of America. Vice President J.D. Vance said the ball is now

in Iran's court. We go back to the United States, having not come to an agreement. We've made very clear what our red lines are.

And we leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our final and best offer.

We'll see if the Iranians accepted.

But Iranian foreign minister Abbas Arakshi said Iran negotiated, quote, in good faith.

But when the sides were just inches away from a deal, the U.S. turned to what he called maximalist demands and imposed a blockade instead.

Iran's speaker of parliament reacted to the U.S. blockade by trawling the president, showing a map of gas prices near the White House in Washington, adding, quote, soon you'll be nostalgic for four to five dollar gas.

Unfortunately, this is an escalation by the United States by invoking the doctrine of blockade, which is a law of naval warfare construct.

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