President Trump warned Iran on social media that its “whole civilization will die tonight” if leaders in Tehran don’t strike a deal to cease hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday evening — a rhetorical escalation that reflects the president’s eagerness to end a war that has engulfed the Middle East for more than five weeks.
For now, it’s unclear whether Trump — who has backed down from several ultimatums over the last month — will follow through.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” the president wrote on Tuesday morning. “We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”
Trump added that he hoped “different, smarter, and less radicalized minds” within the regime would “prevail” and that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful” would happen instead.
Yet, Trump’s threat to devastate Iranian bridges and power plants remains officially on the table ahead of his Tuesday night deadline — and both U.S. and Israeli forces have been trying to force Iran’s hand by ramping up their attacks.
In response, the Iranian military warned that Iran would “deprive the U.S. and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years” and expand its own missile and drone barrages across the region if Trump launches devastating strikes.
Here’s how we got to this moment, and what could happen next.
A timeline of Trump’s ultimatums
Trump has been vowing for around 17 days that Iran will suffer devastating strikes on critical energy infrastructure unless it lifts its effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil and gas shipping route in the Persian Gulf.
With global supply severely constrained, benchmark oil prices have jumped more than 50% since late February — from about $71 per barrel before the first wave of attacks on Iran to about $110 per barrel today.
March 21: Trump threatened to “hit and obliterate” Iran’s power plants within 48 hours unless the Islamic Republic agreed to “fully” reopen the strait.
March 23: Roughly 12 hours before his deadline, Trump wrote on social media that he had delayed his strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure for five days, claiming that the U.S. and Tehran had launched “VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST.” While Trump spent the next few days insisting that talks were going well, Tehran publicly denied that talks were occurring at all.
March 26: Shortly after Wall Street stocks plummeted, the president again postponed his deadline by 10 days, this time to April 6 at 8 p.m. ET. He said he was “pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction” at the request of the Iranian government. Over the next week and a half, Trump vacillated between predicting an imminent deal and issuing increasingly heated threats.
March 30: Trump wrote on social media that a deal would “probably” be “shortly reached — but if not, the U.S. would “conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island” — Iran’s main hub for oil exports — as well as “possibly all desalinization plants!”
April 1: Trump claimed that Iran had requested a ceasefire — a claim that Iran’s foreign minister dismissed as “false and baseless.” Trump said the U.S. would only consider a ceasefire when the Strait of Hormuz was “open, free and clear,” adding that “until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”
April 4: As his postponed April 6 deadline approached, Trump warned Iran that “time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down.”
April 5: Once again, Trump pushed back his deadline — this time from 8 p.m. ET on April 6 to 8 p.m ET on April 7. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” he wrote on social media on Easter Sunday. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”
What the U.S. is asking for
The New York Times reported on March 24 that the U.S. had sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war, citing “two officials briefed on the diplomacy.” The officials said the plan, which reportedly addressed maritime routes as well as Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missiles, had been delivered by Pakistan.
The Associated Press reported that the U.S. plan called for a 45-day ceasefire and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranian regime publicly rejected the U.S. plan, calling it “unrealistic” — but privately signaled some willingness to attend talks hosted in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, according to reports.
Since then, Trump has cast doubt on his terms for ending the war.
The Wall Street Journal reported on March 31 that the president had “told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed” because they had “assessed that a mission to pry open the chokepoint would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks.”
Meanwhile, Trump told Reuters on April 1 that he is no longer bothered by Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium — one of his main rationales for attacking Iran in the first place. “That’s so far underground, I don’t care about that,” he said.
What Iran is asking for
On Monday, April 6 — the day before Trump’s latest deadline — Tehran put forward its own 10-point plan to end the war, according to reports from Iranian state media. Details of the plan were not immediately clear, but two senior Iranian officials told the New York Times that it includes “a guarantee that Iran would not be attacked again, an end to Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the lifting of all sanctions.”
Iranian state media said the proposal “rejected a cease-fire” and “emphasized the necessity of a permanent end to the war in line with Iran’s considerations.”
In exchange, Iran would lift its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — but also assert new control over transit there, imposing a fee of $2 million per ship that it would split with Oman and use to rebuild infrastructure destroyed by U.S. and Israeli attacks.
Asked on Tuesday about Iran’s proposal, Trump said it was “a significant step,” but “not good enough.”
A day earlier, he said “part of [the] deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else,” suggesting that Iran’s proposed fee could be a sticking point.
What happens next
Multiple outlets, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, reported on Tuesday that Iran had cut off direct communication with the U.S. and walked away from negotiations due to Trump’s latest threats.
“The power of a ‘CIVILIZED’ nation’s culture, logic, and faith in its righteous cause will undoubtedly prevail over the logic of brute force,” a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry wrote on social media on Tuesday.
But Axios reported on Tuesday afternoon that “progress has been made in the past 24 hours” — though potentially not enough to reach a ceasefire deal before Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline.
Encouraged by Iran’s 10-point plan — “a lot better than we expected,” according to one U.S. official — Axios wrote that “the thinking in the White House has shifted from ‘can we get there?’ to ‘can we get there by 8 o’clock tonight?’”
“The main option under discussion is a set of confidence-building measures by both Iran and the U.S. focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and in exchange for guarantees on ending the war,” Axios added.
At a press conference in Budapest on Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance said “the ball is in Iran’s court.
“We feel confident we can get a response from the Iranians by 8 p.m.,” Vance said. “We hope it is the right response.”
Progress in the talks might convince the president to further delay his deadline for attacks on Iranian infrastructure. Or, if negotiations fall apart, he could decide to go ahead.
Trump predicted on Monday that such strikes would mean “every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again.”
“It will take them 100 years to rebuild,” he said.
Experts on international law say that destroying power plants, desalination stations, oil wells, roads, bridges and other infrastructure would be considered war crimes in most cases because of the suffering such acts would inflict on Iran’s 93 million civilians.
Iran’s U.N. representative said on Tuesday that Trump’s threats “constitute incitement to war crimes and potentially genocide,” adding that Iran would “take immediate and proportionate reciprocal measures” if the U.S. follows through.
On Tuesday, some Iranians formed human chains along bridges and around power plants, according to videos and photographs posted by state and other local media. At least one Iranian official urged such action ahead of possible U.S. strikes.
