U.S., Iran meet as shipping stays low
American and Iranian negotiators were due to meet in Islamabad as a shaky two‑week ceasefire held but traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained below normal. That combination—talks under way but shipping still subdued—suggests diplomacy has reduced headline escalation without yet restoring commercial confidence or normal transit levels. (cbsnews.com)
Only about a dozen ships used the Strait of Hormuz in the first two days after the ceasefire, even though that waterway normally carries a huge share of the world’s oil trade. At the same time, American and Iranian negotiators were due to meet in Islamabad on Saturday, April 11, with a United States official telling CBS that no agreements had been made yet. (cbsnews.com) That split tells you what traders believe right now: the shooting has slowed faster than the risk has. A ceasefire can be announced in one post, but a tanker owner still has to decide whether to send a billion-dollar ship and crew through a narrow channel beside Iran. (cbsnews.com) The Strait of Hormuz sits between Iran and Oman and links the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. The United States Energy Information Administration says about 20 million barrels a day moved through it in 2024, equal to roughly 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption. (eia.gov) It is not just oil. The same route carried nearly all liquefied natural gas exports from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in 2024, with about 83% of that gas going to Asian markets. (eia.gov) That is why Islamabad matters. CBS reported that the talks were expected to cover Iran’s control of the strait, Israel’s continuing conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, which means the shipping problem is tied to a wider regional bargain, not a single naval order. (cbsnews.com) President Donald Trump announced the two-week ceasefire on April 8, 2026, less than two hours before a deadline he had set for Iran to make a deal or face large-scale strikes on power plants. That gave both sides a short clock from the start, which helps explain why ship traffic has not snapped back after only a few days. (cbsnews.com) The ceasefire also arrived after days of mixed signals about whether the strait was open, controlled, mined, or merely too risky to use. CBS reported earlier this week that Iran had threatened tanker traffic, while the White House denied reports that the waterway had been fully closed. (cbsnews.com) Shipping companies and insurers price risk by behavior, not speeches. CBS reported Trump said the only remaining Iranian threat in the strait was mines and claimed Iranian mine-dropping boats had been sunk, but owners still appeared to be waiting for proof in the form of several quiet days at sea. (cbsnews.com) The energy market has already been forced to think in worst-case terms. On April 7, 2026, the United States Energy Information Administration said its latest forecast had to model the effect of a Hormuz closure and related production outages because that single chokepoint can disrupt supply far beyond the Gulf. (eia.gov) So the real test in the next few days is not whether officials keep talking in Islamabad. It is whether tanker counts through Hormuz start moving back toward normal, because that is when a paper ceasefire starts to look like a working one. (cbsnews.com)
