President Trump told Axios that negotiators have a narrow window to broker an agreement with Iran before a hard deadline on Tuesday, warning of devastating military strikes if talks collapse.
"There is a good chance, but if they don't make a deal, I am blowing up everything over there," Trump said during a phone interview. He claimed the U.S. is "in deep negotiations" and that his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are conducting intense talks with Iranian officials.
The central demand remains unchanged: Iran must open the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has threatened to target power plants and bridge infrastructure across Iran if the regime refuses.
The Ultimatum
Trump escalated his rhetoric Sunday morning with a social media post detailing his military plans. "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!" he wrote, demanding Iran open the strategic waterway.
The threat comes days after the U.S. struck a bridge connecting Tehran with northern Iran, which Trump said was a response to Iranian negotiators stalling by requesting a five-day delay before direct talks.
When asked whether he was concerned about harming innocent Iranian civilians through such attacks, Trump suggested they would welcome military action against their government. "They are living in fear," he said, arguing that opponents of Iran's regime would support strikes intended to weaken leadership.
Tehran has rejected this framing entirely, accusing Trump of planning war crimes and threatening retaliatory strikes against Israeli and Gulf state infrastructure.
Behind-the-scenes negotiations have been running parallel to Trump's public threats. Witkoff and Kushner have been exchanging text messages with Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, while Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey serve as official intermediaries. Over the past ten days, indirect talks have made little headway.
Mediators involved in the process are less optimistic than Trump about the prospects for a comprehensive deal. However, officials from Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey are scrambling to assemble a package of confidence-building measures that could buy time and push both sides toward a direct meeting.
The three countries' foreign ministers held phone calls Saturday with both Witkoff and Araghchi to explore this approach, but the effort yielded no breakthrough.
Trump told Axios that negotiations had come close to success days earlier when the U.S. and Iran agreed to explore direct talks. That progress evaporated, he said, when Iranian negotiators suddenly demanded a five-day delay. Viewing the request as a sign of bad faith, Trump authorized the bridge strike Wednesday.
"The negotiations are going well, but you never get to the finish line with the Iranians," Trump said, acknowledging the consistent difficulty in reaching final agreements with Tehran.
The 8-minute call with Axios offered Trump's clearest public statement on the state of negotiations and the binary choice facing Iran: strike a deal by Tuesday, or face the military consequences he has repeatedly outlined.
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