US military maintaining blockade on Iranian ports as peace talks are set to begin

The U.S. military says it has successfully blocked 9 oil tankers heading to or from Iranian ports as part of President Donald Trump's blockade against Tehran.

The U.S. began enforcing the blockade 48 hours ago, and U.S. Central Command says no vessels have made it past U.S. forces.

"During the first 48 hours of the U.S. blockade on ships entering and exiting Iranian ports, no vessels have made it past U.S. forces. Additionally, 9 vessels have complied with direction from U.S. forces to turn around and return toward an Iranian port or coastal area," CENTCOM wrote in a statement on X.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. would "take" Iran’s enriched uranium if necessary — raising questions about how American forces could physically secure the material after strikes on nuclear sites.

"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," Trump said at the White House Monday, referring to Iran's enriched uranium stockpiles.

The comments also come after high-stakes negotiations between the United States and Iran in Pakistan over the weekend ended without a deal, with disputes over uranium enrichment and control of nuclear material at the center of the impasse.

With diplomacy stalled, a key challenge remains: airpower can damage nuclear facilities, but physically locating, securing and removing enriched uranium would require a far more complex operation.

Iran is believed to possess a significant stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, near weapons-grade — material that could be further refined for use in nuclear weapons if not brought under control.

Analysts say securing the material itself would likely require forces on the ground.

"If the U.S. wants to secure Iran’s nuclear materials, it’s going to require a massive ground operation," Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, told Fox News Digital.

Davenport said the highly enriched uranium believed to be stored at Isfahan appears to be deeply buried and contained in relatively mobile canisters. Securing it would likely require locating the full stockpile, accessing underground facilities and safely extracting or downblending the material.

"It’s not even clear the United States knows where all of the uranium is," she said, noting that the mobility of storage containers raises the possibility that some material could be moved or dispersed.

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Morgan Phillips.

The Department of War revealed Wednesday that 395 U.S. servicemembers have been injured in the Middle East since Operation Epic Fury began.

The Pentagon says 270 of the injuries were in the U.S. Army, while 63 were in the Navy, 19 in the Marines and 43 in the Air Force.

Thirteen U.S. servicemembers have been killed in the conflict.

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said the United States’ upcoming meeting with China may not happen if the war in Iran continues, as Beijing grows increasingly dissatisfied with the U.S.’ aggressive military campaign.

Paulson said the United States’ relationship with China is the most consequential bilateral relationship, but added there is a "huge trust deficit" that needs to be addressed.

"They are intense competitors with the economy… and they’re adversaries when it comes to military issues," he said. 

The former Treasury secretary said that because the two economies are so deeply integrated, he described the U.S.-Chinese economic relationship as "mutually assured economic disruption."

"Each country knows the other can do things to really disrupt their economy," Paulson told FOX Business anchor Liz Claman. "And they know that. And no country can afford a trade war right now. No country can do that. If this spins out of control, it's going to go through the economy."

Paulson predicted how Trump and Jinping’s meeting in May will unfold, suggesting that it will focus on stability.

"Let's just remember, Liz, that this will hopefully be the first of four meetings," Paulson said. "And right now there's a huge trust deficit, but what we know is both want stability, right? And so the emphasis, don't expect a big breakthrough. Expect the Chinese to welcome him [President Trump], you know, with all the pomp and the ceremony, and the symbolism, and then expect an emphasis on stability."

"We're going to see mechanisms for managing trade so it doesn't spin out of control," he added. "We're going to see mechanisms so there can be more cross-border investment. And the biggest thing we need to get out of this is to put guardrails in place so we each understand the other's red lines, we can compete, and we don't get into a trade war."

The former Treasury secretary also commented on the economic impact of Trump’s war on Iran as the ongoing conflict in the Strait of Hormuz causes oil prices to surge.

FIRST ON FOX: Sensitive U.S. military positions in the Middle East may have been exposed through commercial satellite imagery ahead of an Iranian strike that wounded American troops, House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar warned in a new letter raising national security concerns.

In the letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, Moolenaar said Airbus satellite imagery may have been the original source of images later published by a China-based company, MizarVision, which released high-resolution, annotated views of U.S. military aircraft at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

Moolenaar pointed to a sequence in which the firm publicly identified U.S. aircraft at the base shortly before Iran launched a March 27 missile and drone strike on the installation.

The attack wounded at least 12 U.S. service members — two critically — and damaged multiple high-value aircraft, including KC-135 refueling tankers and an E-3G Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft.

Moolenaar said the timing and level of detail in the imagery raise questions about whether publicly available satellite data could be used by adversaries to identify and target U.S. military assets, warning that such images risk becoming "targeting data for enemy forces."

While commercial satellite imagery is widely available and often used for research and transparency, the letter warns that near-real-time, high-resolution images of active operations could provide adversaries with actionable intelligence.

Moolenaar urged War Secretary Pete Hegseth to press Airbus to restrict the release of such imagery, noting that other companies, including Planet Labs, have voluntarily withheld images of the region at the request of the U.S. government.

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Morgan Phillips.

The U.S. is engaged in peace talks with Iran but has not yet agreed to extend President Donald Trump's initial two-week ceasefire, a senior U.S. official told Fox News on Wednesday.

“The United States has not formally agreed to an extension of the ceasefire. There is continued engagement between the U.S. and Iran to reach a deal," the official said.

Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.

House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a long-shot bill in a possible attempt to remove President Trump from office using the 25th Amendment.

The 10-page legislation, introduced by House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., would create a 17-member commission to assess whether the amendment could be used to boot Trump from the White House.

The panel would be composed of several physicians and former high-ranking executive officials appointed by congressional leaders from both parties.

"[T]he Commission shall carry out a medical examination of the President to determine whether the President is mentally or physically unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office," the bill states.

Democratic and Republican leaders of each chamber of Congress would select four physicians and four psychiatrists to serve on the commission. The 16 appointed members would then vote to select an additional member to chair the body.

Many House and Senate Democrats have called for Trump to be removed from office or impeached after he wrote that a "whole civilization will die tonight" in a social media post regarding the war in Iran. Raskin cited Trump's "increasingly volatile, incoherent, and alarming public statements" during the ongoing conflict.

"We have a solemn duty to play our defined role under the 25th Amendment by setting up this body to act alongside the Vice President and the Cabinet," Raskin said in a statement. "Public trust in Donald Trump’s ability to meet the duties of his office has dropped to unprecedented lows as he threatens to destroy entire civilizations, unleashes chaos in the Middle East while violating Congressional war powers, aggressively insults the Pope of the Catholic Church, and sends out artistic renderings online likening himself to Jesus Christ."

The legislation has 50 Democratic co-sponsors.

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Louis Casiano.

President Donald Trump says Chinese leader Xi Jinping denied sending arms to Iran amid its war with the U.S. on Wednesday.

Trump told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo that he exchanged letters with Xi this week after reports that China planned aid Iran militarily.

Those reports led Trump to threaten China with a 50% tariff if it moved to support Tehran.

President Donald Trump predicted on Wednesday that gas prices will drop "tremendously" when the war in Iran ends.

Trump made the comment during an interview with Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo, going on to say that the conflict with Iran is set to end "soon," and before the midterm elections.

"Gasoline is coming down very soon, and very big," Trump said. "I think they'll be much lower. Before midterms? Much lower."

"I mean, that's on the assumption that we stop a country that cannot have a nuclear weapon from--if you give Iran a nuclear weapon, you wanna see bad stock markets? You won't have a country," he continued.

"So, on the assumption we have that settled, hopefully long before that...when that's settled, gas prices are gonna go down tremendously," he added.

President Donald Trump said the U.S.-Iran war is "very close" to an end as hostilities ease amid a two-week ceasefire agreement.

"I think it’s close to over, yeah. I view it as very close to being over," Trump told FOX Business anchor Maria Bartiromo in an interview that will air on "Mornings with Maria" on Wednesday.

"I think it’s close to over, yeah. I view it as very close to being over," Trump told FOX Business anchor Maria Bartiromo in an interview that will air on "Mornings with Maria" on Wednesday.

The president’s comments come as peace talks between U.S. officials and Iranian negotiators are reportedly expected to restart Thursday following stalled weekend talks in Pakistan.

On Monday, Trump instituted a naval blockade of all Iranian ports, marking a fresh intensification of the conflict after the U.S. agreed to stop bombing Iran last week.

Despite Trump saying the war is nearing an end, he also said the U.S. is not done.

"If I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country. And we’re not finished," he said. "We’ll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly."

Vice President JD Vance and senior White House officials held negotiations with Iranian officials over the weekend in Pakistan regarding Tehran’s nuclear program and enrichment plans.

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox Business' Nora Moriarty.

With a second round of talks likely to place between the U.S. and Iran’s regime this week over its illicit nuclear weapons programs, leading experts on Tehran’s program say the Trump administration was right to walk away.

After nearly a day of talks, Vice President JD Vance’s team pulled the plug on the negotiations taking place in Pakistan, something welcomed by experts in the field.

 "The U.S. team was wise to walk away once it became clear the Iranians would not agree to Washington’s core nuclear demands. Tehran maintaining enriched uranium stocks and uranium enrichment capabilities provides it with a pathway to nuclear weapons, plain and simple," Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ nonproliferation program, told Fox News Digital.

A core dispute between the U.S. and Iran is over Tehran’s desire to enrich uranium — the material used to build nuclear weapons.

In 2018, President Trump withdrew from President Obama’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran because his administration argued that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name of the deal, permitted Iran to build an atomic bomb.

When asked what a good nuclear agreement would look like, Stricker said, "A good deal requires the regime to not only turn over its nuclear fuel, dismantle key facilities, and commit to a permanent ban on enrichment, but to cooperate with an IAEA investigation that fully and completely accounts for and dismantles Iran’s nuclear weapons-relevant facilities, equipment, documentation, centrifuges and related production capabilities."

Stricker acknowledged that the process could take several years, but noted that "the IAEA is well-equipped for this mission and has experience dismantling nuclear weapons programs in Iraq, Libya and South Africa. Anything less and Iran will likely cheat on its commitments and reconstitute a breakout pathway."

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Benjamin Weinthal.

A U.S. Navy destroyer intercepted two oil tankers trying to leave Iran on Tuesday and ordered them to turn back, Reuters reported, citing two U.S. officials.

The vessels departed from Chabahar Port in the Gulf of Oman and were contacted by the warship via radio communication, the officials told the outlet.

The officials also said the vessels were among six that U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said had been instructed to return toward Iranian ports after entering the Gulf.