Will the U.S.-Iran Cease-Fire Hold?
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What led to the U.S.-Iran ceasefire announcement?
This morning, the clock starting on a two-week ceasefire announced by President Trump, a last-minute reversal on his threat to take the entire country out. The U.S. has, quote, received a 10-point proposal from Iran and believes, quote, it is a workable basis on which to negotiate.
Iran's foreign minister confirming the reopening of the critical Strait of Hormuz during this ceasefire period.
After days of escalating tensions in the war between Iran and the U.S., The two countries announced a ceasefire last night. It was an off-ramp right at a moment of crisis. Here's the Journal's Washington bureau chief, Damian Paletta.
For the U.S., it's not going to do what President Trump threatened to do, which was to blow up all their bridges, power plants, and things like that. So for the next two weeks, the U.S. has essentially said they're going to stand back. They'll still have the military there and be ready, but they're not going to continue bombing Iran. Now, one of the big questions is, is Iran going to reopen this kind of waterway that is along its shore, the Strait of Hormuz, where a lot of commercial traffic goes through, including a lot of traffic that carries oil, but also other things, too.
While the U.S. and Iran have agreed to stop fighting for now, Damian says this ceasefire is fragile.
These are two countries that have a long history of hating each other and not trusting each other. Can they get to a place where they might see a mutually beneficial off-ramp? I'm not sure, but it's where we are right now.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Wednesday, April 8th.
Coming up on the show, Iran and the U.S. have reached a ceasefire. Can it hold?
The terms of the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran are still very unclear. Trump said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that the U.S. had received a 10-point proposal from Iran that was a, quote, workable basis on which to negotiate. A public version of Iran's 10-point plan calls for, among other things, a removal of sanctions and acceptance for Iran to enrich uranium.
They want the U.S. to leave Iran alone and Iran's proxies alone. Iran also wants to be compensated for all the things the U.S. has blown up. OK, we've blown up a lot of things in Iran. And so I don't know how they think they're going to be compensated for that. You know, a lot of their ships have been sunk. A lot of their leaders are dead. I don't really know what that looks like. There's not a lot of precedent for the U.S. just writing a check for the things that it has destroyed with its military. So that's going to be an interesting conversation or clause there if Iran's really going to stick to that.
But there's another plan the U.S. has floated, a 15-point plan. And earlier today, Trump said in another Truth Social post that there's only one set of points that are acceptable to the United States — He added, quote, These are the points that are the basis on which we agreed to a ceasefire. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt has called Iran's 10-point plan, quote, deeply unserious and said there's no way Trump would agree to it. This afternoon, a high-level Iranian official said on X that the U.S. had already violated his country's 10-point framework to end the war and that because of that, a ceasefire and negotiations would be effectively meaningless. Even with this confusion, and with parties seemingly disagreeing on a lot, peace negotiations are still planned in Pakistan for this weekend.
In the meantime, the current ceasefire is focused on access to the Strait of Hormuz, a major waterway for much of the world's oil that Iran took control over. What did Iran actually agree to?
Is it currently open? I mean, it's not like there's a piece of paper where they signed something that says, here's what we've agreed to. They have not reopened the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians have, just like they have for the past few weeks, there are certain ships they will allow to go through with their permission, almost like with their military's consent.
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