President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he would extend a ceasefire with Iran hours before it was due to expire, pledging to refrain from attacks until discussions with Tehran “are concluded, one way or the other.”
Trump said Iran’s leadership was “seriously fractured” and needed to “come up with a unified proposal.”
Trump made the announcement of an indefinite ceasefire as talks scheduled to take place between U.S. and Iranian delegations in the Pakistani capital were postponed amid uncertainty about the broad strokes of a deal. Vice President JD Vance and other U.S. negotiators remained in Washington instead of leaving for Islamabad as originally planned.
A U.S. delegation was expected to depart Tuesday for a second round of face-to-face peace talks, but Vance stayed behind to hold “additional policy meetings,” a White House official said.
Iran had yet to confirm its attendance at the Islamabad talks, instead warning that it is prepared “to unveil new cards on the battlefield.”
Trump in recent days had cited multiple end times for the ceasefire, but Pakistani mediators on Tuesday confirmed that it was due to expire early Wednesday morning in Iran, or Tuesday night Eastern time.
In his announcement about the extension, Trump said he had instructed the U.S. military to “hold” an attack on the country, but ordered U.S. forces to continue a naval blockade on ports in Iran — and to, “in all other respects, remain ready and able” to act. Trump said he made the decision to hold off on attacking at the request of Pakistani officials mediating the talks.
White House officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether Vance and the U.S. delegation still intend to travel for in-person talks in the coming days.
The United States had planned to send Vance, Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to the talks.
Earlier in the day,Trump had accused Iran of violating the ceasefire “numerous times” in a post on Truth Social. In an interview with CNBC, he said the U.S. was “going to end up with a great deal” from the negotiations. “I think they have no choice. We’ve taken out their navy, we’ve taken out their air force, we’ve taken out their leaders,” Trump said.
When asked whether the U.S. would resume bombing if a deal was not reached by Wednesday, Trump said at that point that he expected to “be bombing, because that is a better attitude to go in with.” He added that the military is “raring to go.”
A day earlier, he told Bloomberg News that he was not likely to extend the ceasefire with Iran if no deal was reached. “I’m not going to be rushed into making a bad deal. We’ve got all the time in the world,” Trump said.
Both sides have expressed support for a negotiated end to the war while also escalating a standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, a choke-point waterway that carries a fifth of the global oil supply and has emerged as a central sticking point in U.S. and Iranian disagreements. The U.S. over the weekend seized the Iranian-flagged ship Touska following reported Iranian attacks on two Indian-flagged ships. The strait is virtually closed to all traffic.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the U.S. seizure of the Touska as “maritime piracy,” warning of “extremely dangerous consequences” while calling for the release of the vessel and its crew in a statement reported by Iranian state media Tuesday.
The Defense Department said U.S. forces also boarded another vessel, the M/T Tifani, overnight as part of its efforts to “interdict sanctioned vessels providing material support to Iran.” The department described the ship as stateless.
The tanker’s last transmitted location Tuesday morning, according to ship tracking data, showed it in international waters in the Indian Ocean, about 400 miles southeast of Sri Lanka. Satellite imagery shows it was previously docked at Iran’s Kharg Island on April 6.
Overnight, U.S. forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the stateless sanctioned M/T Tifani without incident in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility.⁰⁰As we have made clear, we will pursue global maritime enforcement efforts to disrupt illicit… pic.twitter.com/EGwDe3dBI3
— Department of War
(@DeptofWar) April 21, 2026
The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, hovered around $95 per barrel for much of the day Tuesday, while Asian markets closed mostly flat. European markets posted modest gains amid uncertainty over the status of the ceasefire.
Through much of the day, Iranian sources signaled that the country would not send negotiators to Islamabad. Iranian officials said in statements Tuesday that they would not bow to U.S. pressure and said they maintained readiness in case of attacks.
“We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threat, and over the past two weeks, we have been preparing to unveil new cards on the battlefield,” Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote on X overnight. He said that Trump, by imposing the U.S. blockade, “seeks to turn this negotiating table — in his own imagination — into a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering.”
On Tuesday morning, Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, echoed that statement, saying in a post on X that Iran “will Not negotiate under Threat and Force.”
Maj. Gen. Ali Abdollahi, commander of Khatam al-Anbiya military headquarters, said Iran was prepared to deliver “decisive, determining, and immediate responses” in a statement reported by Iran’s state-run Mehr news agency.
By midday Tuesday, the state media outlet Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported that “no Iranian diplomatic delegation — be it a primary or secondary team, or an initial or follow-up mission — has traveled to Islamabad, Pakistan so far” for the latest talks.
Still, Islamabad — an unlikely mediator — was gearing up for the talks Tuesday, heightening security and shutting roads in anticipation of negotiators’ arrival.
Diplomatic posturing ahead of the second round of talks echoed that seen before the previous negotiations, when Washington and Tehran accused each other of acting in bad faith.
The first round, held April 11, marked the highest level of face-to-face engagement between U.S. and Iranian leaders in decades, but the session, which lasted more than 20 hours, failed to produce an agreement.
Vance left the talks saying the U.S. was still open to striking a deal with Iran but needed further reassurance that it would not seek a nuclear weapon or the tools that would enable it to develop one. Iran has publicly rejected demands that it stop uranium enrichment and hand over its stockpile of weapons-grade uranium.
Imogen Piper in London and Cat Zakrzewski in Washington contributed to this report.
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