President Donald Trump has long been searching for this weekend to be a giant one for his presidency.
The World Cup returns to the U.S. on Friday for the primary time in 32 years after Trump threw himself into winning the bid to co-host the soccer tourney during his first term. He’ll be feted Sunday, his eightieth birthday, during a UFC fight night that’s expected to attract hundreds to the White House grounds. Hours after the ultimate bout, he’s scheduled to jet off to the G7 summit within the French Alps for talks with several world leaders he’s been beefing with over war and tariffs.
But Trump set expectations even higher for the approaching days when he announced Thursday that the U.S. and Iran could come to terms this weekend on an agreement that will set the pathway to finish the three-month-old war that’s been broadly unpopular with Americans and has rattled global oil markets. He said he plans to dispatch Vice President JD Vance to the signing of the agreement.
Trump has said on several occasions in recent weeks that he’s on the cusp of a deal without anything coming to fruition. A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry told state television following Trump’s comments that mediators were energetic but nothing had been finalized to finish the conflict.
Still, Trump is claiming this time could be different.
The breakthrough comes after he threatened to escalate the conflict with more intense bombardment of Iran and by seizing control of Iran’s oil industry, including capturing Iran’s vital Kharg Island oil facility. The president’s threats followed back-and-forth strikes this week that had rendered a temporary ceasefire agreed to in early April all but meaningless.
“They’ve taken a pounding like only a few people could take,” Trump said in an Oval Office exchange with reporters as he explained why he was confident that, this time, a deal would come through. “They usually have the desire to make the deal so much greater than I do.”
Trump offered scant details in regards to the settlement he says is taking shape, but told reporters that he believed the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who’s believed to have been wounded on the primary day of the war and has not been seen in public since, is able to log off on the deal.
Trump is billing the deal as “very strong,” though he says it stays “a little bit conceptual,” and says it could ensure Iran is blocked from ever developing a nuclear weapon.
Trump’s heightened threats are geared toward creating an off-ramp
With the conflict intensifying over the past week, Trump’s threat to escalate U.S. military motion seemed partly geared toward demonstrating to the hawkish flank of his political base that he was willing to play “hardball” with the Iranians in the event that they didn’t come to a deal soon, said Ali Vaez, Iran director on the International Crisis Group.
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Trump in March warned he would goal Iran’s infrastructure and put American troops on Kharg Island before he ultimately backed down, and the 2 countries agreed to the temporary ceasefire.
Almost immediately after raising the concept again on social media Thursday, Trump appeared to back away. He called right into a morning show on Fox News Channel and questioned whether Americans had the “stomach” for an option that will require putting U.S. troops in harm’s way.
Hours later, Trump announced he had decided to cancel orders for “very hard” strikes on Iran and said a deal was close.
Vaez said at the same time as Trump was posting on social media Thursday about escalating strikes, mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar had been making progress of their talks with Iran.
At the identical time, Iran also could have reset the equation for Trump with its decision last weekend to attack Israel directly for the primary time for the reason that ceasefire after Israeli forces carried out military strikes on Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
With the move, Iran signaled that Israel could now not bomb Lebanon without facing a meaningful response and in the method also raised the price for the U.S. to follow through on its commitment to assist safeguard Israel.
“It really does appear to me that Trump desires to bring this to an end, but his real challenge is that he’s searching for a victory lap and an exit ramp and people two things aren’t necessarily compatible,” Vaez said.
Trump expresses frustration with war narrative
Trump has been boasting for the reason that early weeks of the conflict that he’d already won the war — much of the Islamic Republic’s leadership has been killed within the bombings and the Iranian navy and air force have been severely degraded.
But Iran continues to effectively keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, choking a waterway through which about 20% of the world’s oil supply passed before the war, and has yet to comply with restart negotiations with the U.S. over its concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, the principal reason Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave to justify launching the war.
But the actual problem, Trump grumbled Thursday, was largely a public relations issue.
“They may wave the white flag of give up. They may say: ‘We give up, we give up, we’re finished, we’ve had it. The USA is the best power, praise be to Allah,’” Trump said on Fox News. “They may say it loud and clear. And the fake news would say it was an ideal victory for Iran.”
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump has grown impatient with Iran and the renewed strikes and threats on Kharg Island and Iran’s energy sector were intended to get the negotiations back to the “right place.”
Polls show that the conflict is largely unpopular with Americans. McCaul said he believes the Iranians need to “try to pull this out so long as they will,” closer to the midterm elections in November, because they see that as being to their profit.
War might be high on agenda at next week’s G7
Deal or no deal, the war will loom large during next week’s talks on the Group of Seven summit in bucolic Évian-les-Bains, France.
Trump has regularly criticized among the group leaders — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — for resisting his calls to help the U.S. and Israeli war effort.
The 4 leaders have also angered Trump by criticizing how he’s gone about executing the war and his lack of consultation with allies before jumping right into a conflict that’s hurt the worldwide economy as oil prices have surged.
But Trump said he’s optimistic he could have an agreement before his talks with leaders in France.
“The strait will officially open as soon as we sign, which could possibly be soon, very soon — perhaps over the weekend in Europe,” Trump said.