President Donald Trump has been eyeing this weekend as a big one for his presidency.
The World Cup returns to the US on Friday for the first time in 32 years after Trump committed to winning the bid to host the soccer tournament in his first term. He will be celebrated on Sunday, his 80th birthday, with a UFC fight night expected to draw thousands to the White House grounds. Hours after the last war, he is scheduled to attend the G7 summit in the French Alps where he will hold talks with several world leaders he has been at odds with over war and taxes.
But Trump raised hopes even higher in the coming days when he announced on Thursday that the US and Iran could agree this weekend on a deal that would set a course for ending a three-month war that has been unpopular with Americans and has rocked global oil markets. He said he plans to send Vice President JD Vance to the signing of the agreement.
Trump has said repeatedly in recent weeks that he is on the hook for a deal without anything happening. A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry told state television following Trump’s comments that mediators are working but nothing has been finalized to end the conflict.
Still, Trump says this time may be different.
The breakthrough comes after he threatened to escalate the conflict by bombing Iran and seizing power in Iran’s oil industry, including seizing Iran’s key Kharg Island oil facility. The president’s threats follow a series of strikes this week that have resulted in a temporary suspension of the ceasefire that was agreed at the beginning of April, all but to no avail.
“They hit hard in a way that few people would take,” Trump said during an Oval Office interview with reporters as he explained why he’s confident that, this time, a deal will come. “And they want to make a deal more than I do.”
Trump gave few details about the deal he said was in the offing, but told reporters he believed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who is believed to have been wounded on the first day of the war and has not been seen in public since, was ready to sign the deal.
Trump has billed the deal as “very strong,” though he says it remains “minimum,” and says it will ensure Iran is prevented from developing a nuclear weapon.
Trump’s high-profile threats are aimed at creating an off-ramp
As the conflict escalated last week, Trump’s threat of US military escalation appears to be intended to signal to his political base that he is willing to play “hardball” with the Iranians if they do not reach a deal soon, said Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group.
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Trump in March warned that he would target Iran’s infrastructure and put US troops on Kharg Island before withdrawing, and the two countries agreed to a temporary ceasefire.
Almost immediately after raising the idea again on social media on Thursday, Trump appeared to back off. He called a morning show on Fox News Channel and asked if the American people had the “stomach” for an option that would require putting the US military at risk.
Hours later, Trump announced that he had decided to cancel orders for “very heavy” strikes on Iran and said a deal was close.
Vaez said that as Trump posted on social media Thursday about the escalating strikes, mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar have been making progress in their talks with Iran.
At the same time, Iran may have reset the Trump equation with its decision last weekend to attack Israel directly for the first time since the ceasefire after the Israeli military launched military strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
With that step, Iran showed that Israel can no longer bomb Lebanon without facing a reasonable response and in this process it increased the costs of the US to follow through on its commitment to help protect Israel.
“It seems to me that Trump wants to end this, but his real challenge is that he wants a victory zone and an exit and those two things are not really compatible,” Vaez said.
Trump expresses frustration over the issue of war
Trump has been boasting since the first weeks of the conflict that he has won the war – much of the Islamic Republic’s leadership has been killed in bombings and the Iranian army and air force have been badly damaged.
But Iran continues to effectively keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, blocking the waterway through which almost 20% of the world’s oil supply passed before the war, and has not yet agreed to resume negotiations with the US regarding its concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, the main reason that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave as the reason for the war.
But the real problem, Trump complained Thursday, is mostly a public relations issue.
“They can wave the white flag of surrender. They may say: ‘We surrender, we surrender, we are done, we have it. The United States is a great power, glory be to Allah,'” Trump said on Fox News. “They can say it loud and clear. And the fake news will say it’s a great victory for Iran.”
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump has lost patience with Iran and that the strikes and renewed threats on Kharg Island and Iran’s energy sector were intended to bring the talks back “to the right place.”
Polls show that conflict is rare among Americans. McCaul said he believes the Iranians want to “try to drag this out as long as possible,” close to the midterm elections in November, because they feel that will benefit them.
War will be high on next week’s G7 agenda
Work or not, the battle will be intense during next week’s talks at the Group of Seven summit in Évian-les-Bains, France.
Trump has regularly criticized some of the group’s leaders – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz – for resisting his calls to aid the US and Israel.
The four leaders also angered Trump by criticizing the way he has conducted the war and his failure to negotiate with allies before entering into a conflict that is damaging the world economy as oil prices rise.
But Trump said he hoped to have a deal before his talks with French leaders.
“The strait will be officially opened as soon as we sign, which will be very, very soon – probably over the weekend in Europe,” Trump said.
