Iran…Trump…Evening….4/21/2026….Trump Extends his Cease-fire Hold…

The extended cease-fire, he said, will stay in effect until Iran’s “leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.”

The first response from Iran came from an adviser to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the influential speaker of the Iranian Parliament — and it was dismissive. “The extension of the cease-fire by Donald Trump has no meaning,” the adviser, Mahdi Mohammadi, wrote on social media.

Mr. Trump’s announcement was a marked departure from his comments earlier in the day, when he told CNBC that if Iran did not agree to U.S. demands, “I expect to be bombing.”

But even as he extended the cease-fire, the president said the U.S. blockade on ships heading to and from Iranian ports would continue. Iran has demanded that U.S. forces allow its vessels free passage, and on Tuesday Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called it “an act of war.”

Even if the two sides return to the negotiating table, many sticking points remain, chiefly on Iran’s nuclear program and on the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic conduit for oil and gas. The threat of Iranian attacks has throttled shipping traffic through the strait, and the U.S. Navy says it has forced 28 ships to turn around.

Here’s what else we are covering:

• Energy: Oil prices approached $100 a barrel and stocks faded on Tuesday as uncertainty clouded the possibility of peace talks.

• Lebanon: Even though a separate 10-day cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon has mostly held since it went into effect last week, Israel on Tuesday blamed Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, of firing rockets toward Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military has kept up repeated strikes since the truce. Hezbollah later confirmed firing on Israel, saying it was in response to cease-fire violations.

• Tanker: The U.S. military stopped and boarded a sanctioned ship in the Indo-Pacific region that was carrying oil from Iran overnight, the Pentagon said on Tuesday….

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ISW....Iran Update Special Report, April 21, 2026

1. The United States extended its ceasefire with Iran “until such time as [the Iranian] proposal is submitted and discussions are concluded.” Trump confirmed that Washington will maintain its blockade of Iranian ports.
2. Conflicting reports on April 20 and 21 about Iran’s participation in the scheduled negotiations and Iran’s failure to produce a unified proposal reflect the ongoing intra-regime power struggle between Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Commander Major General Ahmad Vahidi. ISW-CTP continues to assess that Vahidi appears to have the upper hand over Ghalibaf at the moment.
3. Iranian-backed Iraqi militias conducted up to half of the roughly 1,000 drone attacks targeting Saudi Arabia during the war, according to unnamed sources speaking to the Wall Street Journal on April 21. ISW-CTP previously assessed that it is very unlikely that Iranian-backed Iraqi militias would conduct drone attacks against regional states if the Iranian regime opposed such attacks, which suggests that Iran has not ordered its militia partners to cease attacking regional states.
4. Hezbollah attacked Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and northern Israel for the first time since the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire took effect on April 16. The IDF struck the Hezbollah rocket launcher responsible for the attack on Israeli forces in Rab el Thalathine.