After U.S. President Donald J. Trump met with NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte earlier today, he made a post on TruthSocial, lambasting NATO, saying that “NATO wasn’t there when we needed them, and they won’t be there if we need them again.”

Following the meeting at the White House today between NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and U.S. President Donald J. Trump, NATO Spokesperson Allison Hart released a statement, saying that the two decision-makers spoke about a range of issues related to the transatlantic defense alliance and that Secretary General Rutte stressed the importance of member states continuing to contribute to a strong alliance in the Northern Atlantic.

In a notable development, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is set to visit North Korea to hold talks with his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, between April 9-10. The visit is notable, as the last publicly known visit by China’s foreign minister was in 2019 and high-level meetings and cooperation between the two East Asian nations has waned in the years since.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has published a statement announcing alternative routes for commercial vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, in order to avoid sea mines deployed during the war with Israel and the United States. “All ships intending to transit the Strait of Hormuz are hereby notified that in order to comply with the principles of maritime safety and to be protected from possible collisions with sea mines...they should take alternative routes for traffic in the Strait of Hormuz,” the statement said, providing instructions for an alternative entry and exit route for ships transiting the Hormuz Strait.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump has announced via a post on TruthSocial that, “All U.S. Ships, Aircraft, and Military Personnel, with additional Ammunition, Weaponry, and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already substantially degraded Enemy, will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with. If for any reason it is not, which is highly unlikely, then the ‘Shootin' Starts,’ bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before.”

In the last 24 hours, since the start of the two-week long ceasefire between Iran and the United States, not a single oil or natural gas tanker has transited the Strait of Hormuz, with a total of four bulk cargo vessels transiting the strait on Wednesday, the lowest number of daily crossings so far in April, according to data provided to The New York Times by the global ship-tracking firm Kpler.

This is despite several claims by the White House that there had been an “increase in traffic” today through the Hormuz Strait, while Iranian state-run media channels once again threaten to “fully close” the strait due to continued and intensified strikes by Israel against the Hezbollah terrorist group and civil infrastructure in Lebanon, which Wednesday alone killed over a dozen residents in Southern and Central Lebanon.

Iran is demanding that oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz make toll payments in the form of cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin and stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT or the Trump family’s USD1. Vessels have been told to email Iranian authorities prior to passage through the area with details regarding their cargo, which authorities will then respond with a quote for passage through the toll to be paid in digital currency, reportedly set at $1 per barrel of oil, according to the Financial Times.

The Kuwait Defense Ministry is reporting Iranian drone attacks in the last hour on a number of “vital infrastructure sites” across the country, despite the ongoing ceasefire between Iran and the United States.

Container (green) and tanker (red) vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz via @MarineTraffic since the announcement of the ceasefire shows that the few vessel transits that have occurred continued to deviate out of the main channel around the north side of Larak Island for inspection by Iran.

First Lady Melania Trump this morning, in a rare and unusual statement from the White House, denied her involvement or any relationship with late convicted sex offender and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, calling for Congress “to act” against his co-conspirators and accomplices, while providing a public hearing for the victims of Epstein.