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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has extended the timeline for Iran to either strike a deal or unblock the Strait of Hormuz, moving the deadline from Monday to Tuesday. This marks another in a series of postponements, with Trump cautioning that failure to comply would result in severe consequences for Iran.
The initial deadline was set for March 23, but it has been repeatedly rescheduled as Trump alternated between issuing stern warnings and suggesting progress in discussions, often within the same remarks.
According to reports from Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency on Monday, Iran has turned down the most recent ceasefire offer. In response, Trump delivered a stark ultimatum, emphasizing that the new 8 p.m. EDT deadline on Tuesday would be definitive.
“They will be left without bridges, power plants, or anything else,” he asserted.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres cautioned the United States against targeting civilian infrastructure, citing international law. Nevertheless, Trump, when questioned by reporters, expressed no concerns about the potential for war crimes associated with such actions.
Here are some of Trump’s deadlines and threats, and what happened next.
An ultimatum about reopening the Strait of Hormuz
On March 21, Trump posted on Truth Social that if Iran doesn’t “FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS.”
Iran had until the evening of March 23.
Then 12 hours before the deadline, Trump took to Truth Social to share the good news: that both countries had productive conversations toward concluding the conflict.
“I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD,” he wrote, adding that was subject to the success of the discussions.
That pushed the deadline out to the end of that week.
A threat to target desalinization plants
Before the deadline, on March 26, Trump doubled down on his threats on Truth Social: “They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty!”
But later that day, he extended the deadline for another 10 days, to April 6 at 8 p.m., and said on Truth Social that negotiations were “going very well.”
On March 30, Trump put out a mixed statement: celebrating progress in the talks with Iran while also expanding his threatened bombing if a deal wasn’t “shortly reached,” adding that “it probably will be.”
“We will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!),” he wrote.
It’s unclear how soon “shortly reached” meant for Trump, but a deal was not made as the deadline loomed.
An expletive-filled threat to attack power plants and bridges
“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Saturday, “Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them.”
As the deadline approached, his posts had doubled down on his threats until Sunday, when Trump pushed the deadline again in an expletive-filled post.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F——-in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” Trump said on Truth Social, followed by another post that specified 8 p.m. as the deadline.
Trump then suggested on Monday that Tuesday’s deadline would be final, saying he’d already given Iran enough extensions.
“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said. “We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night.”
What’s next for diplomacy with Iran?
Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, said Iran no longer trusts the Trump administration after the U.S. bombed the Islamic Republic twice during previous rounds of talks.
“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” he told The Associated Press.
A regional official involved in the talks said efforts had not collapsed. “We are still talking to both sides,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door diplomacy.
On an Israeli TV station, Channel 13, the evening newscast showed a large digital clock counting down the hours and minutes to Tuesday’s deadline.