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.
The decision to extend the ceasefire marked a significant shift for Trump, who earlier in the day had said that if a deal was not reached by Wednesday, he expected to “be bombing, because that is a better attitude to go in with.” He added that the military was “raring to go.”
His reversal had the effect of handing the initiative to Tehran, which has reveled in its ability to dial up pressure on global energy markets through its stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz. And it was the latest measure of Trump’s appetite for renewed conflict, which for now appears low.
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. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued a statement on X thanking Trump “for graciously accepting our request to extend the ceasefire to allow ongoing diplomatic efforts to take their course.”
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said Tuesday evening that talks would resume only after Washington ends the blockade.
“I think the next round of the negotiations will take place in Islamabad,” he said. He called the naval blockade a violation of the ceasefire and reiterated that lifting it is a condition for new negotiations to take place.
The U.S. started the war, Iravani said, and if Washington wants to return to the negotiating table “and find a political solution, they will find us ready.”
“If they want to go to the war, in this case also Iran is ready for that,” he told a small group of reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York. When asked how hopeful he is about the possibility of new negotiations, the ambassador replied: “We should give the chance — we hope.”
Tehran has been mindful of the growing political pressure on Trump as global energy prices tick higher and has gained leverage from the ceasefire extension, analysts said.
“What we’ve seen so far is an Iran that is trying to use time as a weapon, but has been willing to contemplate an off-ramp. They’re just trying to drive up the price,” said Suzanne Maloney, a vice president of the Brookings Institution who is an expert on U.S.-Iran relations. “They’re testing to see what else they can achieve.”
Both sides are likely to eventually have motivation to come back to the table, Maloney said, because Iran also wants to ensure that its oilfields can continue pumping and only has limited storage capacity to hold oil while the U.S. blockade prevents its tankers from exiting the Persian Gulf. China, Iran’s major foreign backer, is also uncomfortable with extended disruptions to the global economy and can apply pressure to Tehran to reach a deal.
For now, however, Iranian leaders probably believe they are in less of a rush than Trump to reach a deal, complicating efforts for a speedy resolution, Maloney said.
The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, hovered around $95 per barrel for much of the day, but popped to $99 after Trump’s announcement, reflecting uncertainty about the status of the ceasefire and disappointment that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will remain restricted for now.
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.
The extension of that deadline capped a day that began with a U.S. delegation led by Vance and including Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner preparing to depart for a second round of face-to-face peace talks.
Late Tuesday morning, a White House official said Vance was staying behind to hold “additional policy meetings.”
After Trump’s late-afternoon extension of the ceasefire, a White House official said “the trip to Pakistan will not be happening today. Any further updates on in-person meetings will be announced by the White House.”
During the course of the day, Iranian officials had issued several statements saying their delegation was not traveling to Pakistan and warning that it was prepared “to unveil new cards on the battlefield.”
Tuesday morning, Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam,said in a post on X that Iran “will Not negotiate under Threat and Force.”
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.
The day before, 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.
Trump did not mention the war or negotiations with Iran at his only public event of the day — remarks to NCAA collegiate national champions at the White House late Tuesday afternoon, after he announced the ceasefire extension on Truth Social. Trump exited without taking any questions from assembled reporters, walking out of the State Dining Room as the Marine Band played “We Are the Champions.”
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
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.”
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, Heba Farouk Mahfouz in Cairo, and John Hudson and Cat Zakrzewski in Washington contributed to this report.
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