President Donald Trump signaled he is unlikely to extend a two-week ceasefire with Iran that’s set to expire in two days, while Iran has yet to confirm it will participate in talks to end a war that’s engulfed the Middle East and upended global trade.
Trump said in an interview on Monday that the ceasefire expires on Wednesday evening in Washington and he is “not going to be rushed into making a bad deal.” He said the Strait of Hormuz would stay blockaded for now, and “I’m not opening it until a deal is signed.” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said his country would not “accept negotiations under the shadow of threats.”
The standoff underscores the uncertainty surrounding a new round of talks, even after Trump said negotiations could begin as early as Tuesday. The US president has threatened strikes on Iran’s power infrastructure if diplomacy fails. A pause in hostilities has mostly held for two weeks after a conflict that killed thousands across the region and disrupted global energy supplies.
Vice President JD Vance will leave for Pakistan to participate in negotiations that are set to begin “either Tuesday night or Wednesday morning,” Trump said Monday. He is expected to be joined by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff.
“There’s going to be a meeting. They want a meeting, and they should want a meeting. And it can work out well,” Trump said.
The president’s optimism contrasts with the tone of Iranian officials, a difference that became more pronounced after the US intercepted and seized an Iranian-flagged vessel that attempted to transit Hormuz. The waterway – through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas exports flowed before the war began in February – remains effectively shut. Iran said last week it would reopen the strait to traffic, only to reverse the decision hours later as the blockade on its own ships persisted.
Iranian officials have stopped short of explicitly ruling out participation in the talks in Pakistan, reinforcing expectations that both sides are continuing to explore a deal to end the war. The conflict began on Feb. 28, when the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran, prompting retaliatory attacks by Iran or its proxies in a conflict that affected about a dozen countries across the region.
Benchmark oil futures fell about 1 percent on Monday after a report that Iran would be sending a team to Islamabad for the peace talks. Brent crude is still about a third more costly than before the war began.
Beyond Hormuz, another fraught issue is Iran’s nuclear program. Trump has demanded that Iran forswear any ambitions for a nuclear weapon and hand over stockpiles of enriched uranium. Tehran has balked at giving up its uranium and has said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Trump and advisers see his varying comments about what might happen if the ceasefire deadline lapses as creating strategic ambiguity that the US could exploit in talks, said a White House official, who requested anonymity to describe internal thinking.
Yet that uncertainty could create misunderstandings with Iranian negotiators, who are also grappling with internal divisions among the country’s leaders.
Conservative elements within the Iranian government and military leadership, including those at the top of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have taken the continuation of the US blockade as a further signal that Trump can’t be trusted, according to US and Iranian officials.
The IRGC’s leader, Ahmad Vahidi, is pushing for a tough negotiating stance, people familiar with the dynamics said.
There is a divide between the likes of Vahidi and less ideological figures, such as President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who are more inclined to reach an accord with Washington, said the US and Iranian officials, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Trump is also facing pressure at home to end the war, with polls showing most Americans disapproving of the conflict. The president campaigned on keeping the US out of foreign entanglements and lowering consumer prices, two pledges strained by his decision to start the war.
He has sought to assuage those worries, insisting that fuel prices will fall quickly once the war ends and that the US is not embroiled in a quagmire.
The conflict has already stretched beyond the four-to-six-week timeline Trump initially set, and he has repeatedly suggested the conflict was nearing a conclusion. At the same time, he’s urged Americans to have patience, noting that other US wars dragged on for years.
“Vietnam lasted how many decades, right? Vietnam lasted years. Afghanistan lasted years. They all lasted years,” Trump said. “I’m not going to be rushed into making a bad deal by treasonous senators and treasonous congresspeople.”
