U.S. and Iran Open Swiss Peace Talks as Trump Threatens and Hormuz Shuts

The first face-to-face talks under the fragile truce between the United States and Iran opened Sunday at a Qatari-owned resort above Lake Lucerne, even as President Donald Trump threatened on social media to "hit Iran very hard again" and Tehran insisted it had shut the Strait of Hormuz for a second time.

Vice President JD Vance led the American delegation into the Bürgenstock mountain retreat near Lucerne, the opening round of a process meant to turn a memorandum of understanding signed a week ago into a durable peace. The document sets a 60-day window to negotiate the harder questions, chief among them Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. On Sunday, by Iran's account, none of that was on the table.

The mismatch between the two capitals was on open display. Inside the meeting room, Vance told reporters Washington wanted to "turn over a new leaf" in the Middle East and claimed "great progress," going so far as to say "the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, the ending of the Iranian nuclear programme – all of these things have been accomplished." Hours earlier and a continent away, Trump was posting a warning on Truth Social: "Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don't, we'll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder."

Iran's lead negotiator, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, answered on X that "we don't count on the American threats," adding a barbed line about Washington's "desperation." The two delegations did not pose for a joint photograph. According to Iran's Fars news agency, the first four-way meeting with Qatari and Pakistani mediators ran 80 minutes before breaking for internal consultations.

What hangs over the room is Lebanon, where Israel's March invasion in pursuit of Hezbollah fighters has driven more than a million people from their homes. Iran says the interim deal required a ceasefire "on all fronts," and that because the fighting has not stopped, it again closed Hormuz – the channel through which a large share of the world's seaborne oil moves. Its earlier four-month closure, the talks' backdrop, caused what one account called the biggest disruption to global energy supplies in history.

Washington disputes that the waterway is actually shut. Yet the commercial signal pointed the other way, and Iran's Fars agency cited a military source saying no new transit permits would be issued until further notice. Oil had tumbled over the past week to levels unseen since the war began; the weekend timing of Tehran's move, with markets closed, delays the reckoning to Monday.

For all the brinkmanship, the negotiators have reasons to stay at the table. Iran wants its frozen assets unlocked and sanctions on its oil sector eased; President Masoud Pezeshkian, quoted by Fars, called restored access to blocked funds the first goal. The Americans want the strait open and the nuclear file reopened. This was the same Swiss process that stalled days earlier when the Lebanon clause unraveled, and it remains hostage to events outside the room.

Israel is the wild card neither side fully controls. Its army chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, called the Lebanon ceasefire "fragile" on a visit south on Sunday and said troops should be ready "to renew combat activity." The Lebanese Health Ministry put the toll from Israeli strikes since March 2 at 4,106 killed and 12,153 wounded in its latest count. By nightfall Sunday, southern Lebanon was unusually quiet, and Reuters journalists reported residents driving back toward homes they had fled. Whether that calm survives contact with Monday's oil markets, and with Trump's next post, is the question the Bürgenstock cannot answer.