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President Donald Trump said yesterday the US Navy would immediately start blockading the Strait of Hormuz, raising the stakes after marathon talks with Iran mediated by Pakistan failed to reach a deal to end the war, jeopardising a fragile two-week ceasefire.

In response, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned they have traffic in the strategic waterway under full control and would trap any enemy who tries to challenge it “in a deadly vortex in the Strait if it makes the wrong move”.

Each side had earlier blamed the other for the failure of talks to end six weeks of fighting that has killed thousands, roiled the global economy and sent oil prices soaring. The talks, after a ceasefire earlier in the week, were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In a lengthy declaration on his social media platform, Trump said that his eventual goal was to clear the strait of mines and reopen it to all shipping, but that in the meantime Iran must not be allowed to profit from its control of the waterway.

Iran has itself been restricting traffic through the strait -- a key route for shipments of oil, gas and fertiliser from the Gulf to the world market -- while allowing vessels deemed to be

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