{"id":7734,"date":"2026-04-09T00:09:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T00:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/09\/the-u-s-and-iran-struck-a-two-week-truce-now-what-council-on-foreign-relations\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T00:09:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T00:09:17","slug":"the-u-s-and-iran-struck-a-two-week-truce-now-what-council-on-foreign-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/09\/the-u-s-and-iran-struck-a-two-week-truce-now-what-council-on-foreign-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"The U.S. and Iran Struck a Two-Week Truce. Now What? – Council on Foreign Relations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A summary of global news developments with CFR analysis delivered to your inbox each morning.<\/i>
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Weekdays
Welcome to the Daily News Brief<\/em>, CFR\u2019s flagship morning newsletter summarizing the top global news and analysis of the day. <\/span>
The United States, Israel, and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire yesterday after nearly forty days of fighting. <\/strong>Pakistan helped mediate the ceasefire, which includes a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping traffic. Both the United States and Iran hailed the step as a victory. Yet disagreements remain, as Israel refuted<\/a> Pakistan\u2019s claim that Lebanon was included in the agreement. U.S. Vice President JD Vance called<\/a> the truce \u201cfragile\u201d today as some attacks continued in the region\u2014while leaders from China<\/a>, Europe<\/a>, and Africa<\/a> praised the announcement. Whether the temporary ceasefire will lead to a lasting peace settlement remains to be seen. Pakistan invited<\/a> the United States and Iran to begin negotiations on Friday in Islamabad.<\/span>
Victory lap.<\/strong> \u201cA big day for World Peace!\u201d U.S. President Donald Trump proclaimed<\/a> this morning. Trump said<\/a> last night that Washington had \u201calready met and exceeded all military objectives\u201d in the war and that a ten-point proposal from Iran was a workable starting point for negotiations. Iranian state media published<\/a> a version of that proposal, though a White House social media account disputed<\/a> reporting on the proposal. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said<\/a> passage through the Strait of Hormuz during the truce will be ensured in conjunction with the Iranian military. The United States \u201cwill be helping with the traffic buildup\u201d in the vital waterway, Trump said. As of this morning, traffic through the strait had not increased<\/a> on a large scale. In additional social media posts, Trump said<\/a> Washington would work with Tehran to \u201cdig up and remove\u201d nuclear particles and discuss tariff and sanctions relief; he also threatened<\/a> 50 percent tariffs on countries supplying Iran with weapons.<\/span>
On the battlefield. <\/strong>Despite the agreement, an Iranian oil refinery was struck<\/a> in the hours after the truce announcement, and Kuwait<\/a> and the United Arab Emirates<\/a> also reported airstrikes. In Lebanon, Hezbollah paused its attacks on Israel, unnamed sources close to the group told<\/a> Reuters, though Israel\u2019s military said<\/a> it struck one hundred targets across Lebanon today. Thousands of U.S. troops remain deployed in the region, and U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine today said<\/a> U.S. forces \u201cstand ready, if ordered or called upon, to resume combat operations.\u201d<\/span>
Market moves. <\/strong>Oil futures dropped<\/a> and stock markets rose in response to the ceasefire announcement. Hours before the truce\u2014when Trump\u2019s threat of civilizational destruction still hung in the air\u2014a key oil benchmark had surged<\/a> to its highest level on record. Yet the head of the International Air Transport Association warned<\/a> today that it could take months to reverse the war\u2019s impact on jet fuel supply even if the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.<\/span>
\u201cThis is an agreement to begin to talk\u2026A ceasefire is better than no ceasefire. It\u2019s good for the bombing to stop. It\u2019s good for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened, assuming that the Iranians actually follow through on that, but this is really just the beginning of a conversation about these fundamental issues where I think the U.S. and Iran are in really quite different positions.\u201d<\/em><\/span>
\u2014CFR President Michael Froman tells <\/strong>The Rest is Politics: U.S.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/span>
U.S. journalist freed in Iraq. <\/strong>Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah freed U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson after abducting her a week ago, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced<\/a> yesterday. He thanked multiple U.S. agencies as well as Iraq for helping secure her release. Unnamed Iraqi security officials told multiple news<\/a> outlets<\/a> that Kittleson was freed in a prisoner swap. <\/span>
Trump, Vance campaign for Orb\u00e1n. <\/strong>Trump and Vance endorsed<\/a> Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n during Vance\u2019s trip to Budapest yesterday, with Vance putting<\/a> Trump on speakerphone at an Orb\u00e1n rally. \u201cI\u2019m a big fan of Viktor. I\u2019m with him all the way,\u201d Trump told the crowd. Orb\u00e1n\u2019s far-right party is trailing<\/a> behind its main center-right opponent in polls ahead of this weekend\u2019s parliamentary election. <\/span>
French couple allowed to leave Iran. <\/strong>Two French citizens arrested<\/a> in Iran almost four years ago on espionage charges were allowed to leave the country yesterday, President Emmanuel Macron announced<\/a>. They were freed from Iran\u2019s Evin Prison in late 2025 and had since been under house arrest at the French consulate. Paris maintained that the charges were baseless. Macron thanked Oman for efforts to mediate. <\/span>
Indian trade delegation in China. <\/strong>Envoys from eight Indian companies traveled to China earlier this month on the first Indian trade mission to the country in five years, the head of an Indian trade group told<\/a> CNBC. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in India described<\/a> the trip as part of a \u201cthaw\u201d between the two countries. Bilateral relations have improved from a 2020 low<\/a> that included border clashes; an Indian move last month also eased<\/a> restrictions on Chinese investments.<\/span>
Vietnam\u2019s new president. <\/strong>Vietnam\u2019s legislature elected<\/a> Communist Party leader To Lam as the country\u2019s president yesterday. The selection makes him the one-party nation\u2019s most powerful leader in decades. Lam has maintained positive relations with both China<\/a> and the United States<\/a> and spearheaded economic reforms aimed at ensuring Vietnam becomes an upper-income country in the next twenty years. <\/span>
Crisis-cushioning fund. <\/strong>The African Export-Import Bank announced<\/a> yesterday it had approved $10 billion in funds to help African and Caribbean nations and companies deal with the economic fallout of the Iran war. The fund is designed to help finance fuel, food, and pharmaceutical imports.<\/span>
Australian war crimes charges. <\/strong>Australia\u2019s federal police yesterday charged<\/a> a decorated soldier with five counts of war crimes over allegations he killed unarmed civilians during the war in Afghanistan. Multiple media outlets identified<\/a> the man as Ben Roberts-Smith; he has in the past denied any wrongdoing during his service. Roberts-Smith previously lost<\/a> a defamation lawsuit against news organizations that reported allegations related to his war conduct.<\/strong> <\/span>
U.S.-Mexico-Canada talks. <\/strong>Ongoing negotiations on rebalancing the trade agreement between the three countries are likely to run past their original July 1 deadline, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said<\/a> yesterday. While Trump has floated the idea of exiting the agreement, Greer said yesterday that its main provisions function well and suggested that the United States favors tweaks rather than an exit.<\/span>
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License.
By James M. Lindsay
\u00a92026 Council on Foreign Relations<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NewsletterA summary of global news developments with CFR analysis delivered to your inbox each morning.FrequencyWeekdaysWelcome to the Daily News Brief, CFR\u2019s flagship morning newsletter summarizing the top global news and analysis of the day. The United States, Israel, and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire yesterday after nearly forty days of fighting. Pakistan helped mediate the ceasefire, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}