U.S. Vice President J D Vance, who led the American delegation into the first cease-fire talks with Iran, returned home empty-handed after 21 hours of negotiations. With no date set for the next round and President Donald Trump brandishing a counter-blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, many say the role of Vice President Vance is now being put to the test.

In Islamabad, Pakistan, beginning on the 11th (local time), Vice President Vance held overnight negotiations with the Iranian delegation, but, failing to bridge differences on key issues such as opening the Strait of Hormuz, he returned to Washington on the 12th. For the 41-year-old vice president, who led the team together with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the talks were a significant test.

The New York Times (NYT) on the 12th called the trip his most high-profile assignment in the 14 months since taking office, noting that his activity had so far been focused mainly on domestic politics.

Publicly, Vance voiced support for the airstrikes on Iran ordered by President Donald Trump, but in private he was said to have expressed skepticism about military operations. Maintaining a traditionally non-interventionist bent, his stance has won broad backing from the core MAGA (MAGA·Make America Great Again) base. In 2023, when declaring his support for Trump, Vance even named “not starting wars” as the most important achievement of the former president. Among key Trump insiders, the figure who had been most critical of this war ended up leading the highest-level U.S.·Iran talks in 47 years.

However, the NYT noted that even the format of the talks had not been set by the time Vance departed Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was publicly declaring his intent to continue clashes with the Lebanese pro-Iran armed faction Hezbollah, a sign that many variables in a U.S.·Iran war lie beyond the control of the United States.

The BBC highlighted a lack of diplomatic experience on the U.S. delegation. Vance has only two years in public office as a senator, while Witkoff and Kushner come from real-estate business backgrounds. They are ‘problem solvers’ who have roamed numerous conflict zones, but earlier failures in Iran talks fed into the current war, and, with the Hormuz blockade in place, Iran now holds a stronger negotiating position.

The talks were hampered from the start by mixed messages from President Trump. Even during the negotiations, he said that “Iran is losing badly,” and he belittled the leverage held by Iran as nothing more than short-term coercion using international sea lanes. He also declared, “We will win regardless of whether there is a deal.” Iranian state media even reported that the U.S. negotiating team was in disarray.

Before the talks began, at a White House Easter luncheon on April 1, Trump had joked, “If the negotiations fail, I will put the blame on Vance, and if they succeed, I will take the credit.”

The Washington Post (WP), citing a U.S. official who requested anonymity, reported that Vice President Vance was fully aware of the risks posed by deep-seated distrust and misperceptions between the U.S.·Iran sides. Another official said that as the talks progressed, camaraderie formed within the U.S. team and the atmosphere softened, but it did not lead to an agreement.

After the negotiations collapsed, on the 12th President Trump formalized a counter-blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, moving to respond in kind. With Iran having already shifted the balance of leverage through its control of the strait and the United States answering with a blockade of its own, tensions between the two sides are rising again. With a two-week truce deadline expiring at the end of the month approaching, it remains uncertain when the talks will resume and, if they do, whether Vice President Vance will again take the lead.

President Trump is scheduled to visit Arizona and Nevada this week to tout achievements of the administration. The WP reported, “As the Trump administration seeks an exit strategy, it is unclear how deeply Vice President Vance, who has focused on promoting Trump policies while touring swing states, will be involved in war matters going forward.”