Trump’s previous deadline was weeks ago, but it was postponed several times as the Republican president oscillated between heated threats, announced delays and proclamations that the negotiations were going well, sometimes in the same statement.
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That was true in Trump’s Truth Social post ahead of his Tuesday 8 p.m. ET deadline. After threatening a “whole civilization,” Trump said that Iran’s new leaders were more reasonable and “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”
Officials involved in diplomatic efforts said talks were ongoing, but it was unclear if a deal would be reached by the deadline, which Trump has suggested was final. Trump raised the ante on his threats from Monday.
“They’ll have no bridges. They’ll have no power plants. They’ll have no anything,” he wrote.
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So how did Trump’s deadline delays and threats escalate over the last weeks?
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.”
By Tuesday morning, Trump had sent his statement saying “a whole civilization will die tonight,” to which he added that “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
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.
The talks were ongoing as the Tuesday night deadline ticked closer.
