President Donald Trump said Thursday that he had canceled scheduled attacks on Iran after progress on a potential peace deal, his latest reversal in a months-long pattern of threatening attacks and walking them back.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump asserted that an agreement to end hostilities would be signed “maybe this weekend,” after which the United States would immediately lift its naval blockade of the country.
The deal would bar Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Trump said, an objective he has named as key in deciding to strike the country. It was not immediately clear whether Iran’s leaders had formally signed off on the agreement, although Trump asserted that they had.
Pressed by reporters on whether an agreement was truly close after weeks of false starts, Trump said Iran’s current leaders were “much more rational” than their predecessors and were worn out by the U.S. military’s attacks.
“We knocked out the first team of leadership,” Trump said. “The second team of leadership, this is a different group. It’s a different level. And I think it’s, frankly, a smarter level.”
The White House declined to offer further details about the potential agreement. The president has asserted for weeks that a deal is close, even as he has issued new threats to attack Iran.
Trump had earlier Thursday announced another round of planned retaliatory strikes after Iran launched waves of attacks against U.S. bases across the Middle East.
U.S. forces will hit Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT,” Trump had posted on Truth Social, raising fears that the escalating exchange would renew combat in the region. He also said the U.S. would seek to control the country’s oil and gas facilities, without offering specifics of how that might be carried out.
“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela,” Trump wrote.
The president later wrote on the platform that “discussions and final points” with Iran had “been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved,” and he called off the attack.
Asked in the Oval Office whether the deal was a final agreement, Trump said that it was “a very strong memorandum of understanding that is a little conceptual” and that its provisions were supported by other nations.
An Iranian official briefed on the talks, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said he was unaware of any official confirmation of acceptance from the Iranian side but viewed Trump’s announcement as a sign that there could be “good ground for a deal.”
Kharg Island, about 15 miles from the Iranian mainland in the Persian Gulf, is the centerpiece of Iran’s oil-based economy, with about 90 percent of the country’s oil exports moving through there. In March, the U.S. struck military targets on the site, but Iranian officials said the oil industry remained in operation. It has previously been the subject of speculation about a potential ground invasion, which would provide control over a critical Iranian asset but leave U.S. troops vulnerable to attack, The Washington Post reported.
Shortly after his post on social media, Trump told Fox News that his “preference” has always been to take Kharg Island but that he was unsure if “America has the stomach for it.”
“You’d make a fortune, but I don’t know that America has the stomach, I think they’d like to see us come home,” he said, in an apparent acknowledgment of the deep unpopularity of a war that has led to a spike in energy prices around the world.
The president’s reversal Thursday again jolted markets. Oil futures dropped 3 to 4 percent after his initial post calling off the planned strikes. Later in the afternoon, prices rose, then dropped again after Trump said the countries were on the verge of signing an agreement.
The president’s comments came after a new round of bombing ratcheted up what was already the hottest week of combat operations since the U.S. and Iran agreed to a tentative ceasefire in April, and raised further questions about Trump’s repeated assertions that an overarching deal to end the war is close at hand.
An escalatory spiral started over the weekend after Israel carried out an airstrike Sunday in southern Beirut, targeting the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. That was followed by the first direct attacks between Iran and Israel since April, with the two nations trading volleys of missiles until Trump demanded a halt. But after Iran downed a U.S. Army Apache helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, the president quickly ordered retaliatory strikes, further imperiling the ceasefire and the start-and-stop negotiations.
Trump on Wednesday voiced frustration over the inability to clinch a deal. “Iran is all talk and no action,” he posted on social media. “They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!”
Later that day, U.S. Central Command said it struck communication systems and air defense sites across Iran. “The strikes are in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression. U.S. forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready,” it said.
Iran’s Thursday attacks targeted five sites in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan, according to Iranian state media: the Ali Al Salem and Ahmed Al-Jaber air bases in Kuwait, the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters and Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain, and the Mowafq Al-Salti base in Jordan.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said that the U.S. strikes have rendered the April ceasefire effectively “meaningless” and that it remains determined to target the source of the attacks.
The U.S. military did not immediately confirm the attacks on its assets in the region Thursday, but the U.S. Embassy in Jordan issued a security alert based on reports of missiles, rockets and drones in Jordanian airspace.
Jordan’s armed forces intercepted 20 missiles launched from Iran, the country’s news agency reported Thursday. Authorities in Kuwait temporarily closed its airspace and said air defense systems were working to intercept hostile targets. Bahrain’s Defense Ministry said it intercepted missile and drone attacks, and its Interior Ministry urged citizens to take shelter, saying an 11-year-old girl was injured by falling debris from drone interceptions.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday issued a statement noting that while Israel is not a party to the proposed memorandum of understanding, Netanyahu welcomed “President Trump’s commitment that the final agreement at the conclusion of the negotiations will include the removal of enriched material, the dismantling of enrichment infrastructure, the limitation of missile production, and the cessation of Iran’s support for its terrorist proxies in the region.”
The fresh wave of fighting this week has raised fears of a return to widespread regional war, with world leaders calling for the increasingly strained ceasefire — technically still in effect — to be heeded.
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said the consequences of further deterioration go far beyond the Middle East and called for a diplomatic settlement. “The ceasefire is more like a lesser-fire. We should not minimize the risks of lesser fire becoming full fire,” he said. “No more attacks. No more excuses,” he said.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry condemned the “resurgence” of Iranian strikes in a statement Thursday, calling for the region to be spared the “consequences of these unjustified attacks” and for stability to be restored.
In a sign of the war’s widening regional implications, Centcom said Thursdaythat it had fired missiles into the Jalveer tanker in the Gulf of Oman, in what marked the third commercial ship to be “disabled” by U.S. forces this week. The U.S. military had also struck the Palau-flagged vessels Settebello and Marivex, Centcom said, accusing them of violating a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports that has been in effect since April.
India’s shipping minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, said three Indian nationals were killed on the Settebello in an incident he described as “deeply unfortunate” in a post on X. “This is a profound loss to our maritime family,” he said.
Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for India’s External Affairs Ministry, said the government had summoned the U.S. chargé d’affaires over the Settebello incident and called for a diplomatic end to the conflict and restoration of stability. “The continuing attacks on shipping in the region are deeply worrisome and are a direct result of the ongoing conflict in the region,” he said in a Thursday news conference.
The recent escalations threaten to upend lengthy negotiations between the U.S. and Iran to secure a lasting peace deal, which Trump said this week were in the “final throes.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking at U.S. Central Command headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, said U.S. strikes would “enhance our military interests and also enhance our diplomatic position” against Tehran. “If we need to negotiate with bombs, we’ll negotiate with bombs. And we’re very good at it,” he said.
The impact of Iran’s strikes on U.S. military targets Thursday remained unclear. A U.S. official said Iran’s assault a day earlier caused no significant damage or harm to U.S. personnel. Nearly all missiles and drones were intercepted or failed to reach their intended targets, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to press.
Iranian state media reported Wednesday that two desalination plants and a water tank serving the southern city of Sirik were destroyed during the U.S. attack, leaving 20,000 people without access to water during extreme heat. The strike has not been confirmed by U.S. authorities, but a legal expert said it raises questions about whether targeting civilian facilities is a military objective.
Susannah George in Washington and Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
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