PresidentĀ Donald TrumpĀ has long been looking for this weekend to be a big one for his presidency.
The World CupĀ returns to the U.S. on Friday for the first time in 32 years after TrumpĀ threw himself into winning the bidĀ to co-host the soccer tourney during his first term. Heāll be feted Sunday, his 80th birthday, during a UFC fight night thatāsĀ expected to draw thousandsĀ to the White House grounds. Hours after the final bout, heās scheduled to jet off to theĀ G7 summit in the French AlpsĀ for talks with several world leaders heās been beefing with over war and tariffs.
But Trump set expectations even higher for the coming days when he announced Thursday that the U.S. and IranĀ could come to terms this weekendĀ on an agreement that would set the pathway to end the three-month-old war thatās been broadly unpopular with Americans and has rattledĀ global oil markets.Ā He said he plans to dispatch Vice PresidentĀ JD VanceĀ to the signing of the agreement.
Trump has said on several occasions in recent weeks that heās on the cusp of a deal without anything coming to fruition. A spokesperson for Iranās Foreign Ministry told state television following Trumpās comments that mediators were active but nothing had been finalized to end the conflict.
Still, Trump is claiming this time might be different.
The breakthrough comes after he threatened to escalate the conflict with more intense bombardment of Iran and by seizing control of Iranās oil industry, including capturingĀ Iranās vital Kharg Island oil facility.Ā The presidentās threats followedĀ back-and-forth strikesĀ this week that had rendered aĀ temporary ceasefireĀ agreed to in early April all but meaningless.
āTheyāve taken a pounding like very few people could take,ā Trump said in an Oval Office exchange with reporters as he explained why he was confident that, this time, a deal would come through. āAnd they want to make the deal a lot more than I do.ā
Trump offered scant details about the settlement he says is taking shape, but told reporters that he believed the Iranian supreme leader,Ā Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei,Ā who is believed to have been wounded on the first day of the war and has not been seen in public since, is ready to sign off on the deal.
Trump is billing the deal as āvery strong,ā though he says it remains āa little conceptual,ā and says it would ensure Iran is blocked from ever developing a nuclear weapon.
Trumpās heightened threats are aimed at creating an off-ramp
With the conflict intensifying over the past week, Trumpās threat to escalate U.S. military action seemed in part aimed at demonstrating to the hawkish flank of his political base that he was willing to play āhardballā with the Iranians if they didnāt come to a deal soon, said Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group.
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Trump in MarchĀ warned he would target Iranās infrastructureĀ and put American troops on Kharg Island before he ultimately backed down, and the two countries agreed to the temporary ceasefire.
Almost immediately after raising the idea again on social media Thursday, Trump appeared to back away. He called into a morning show on Fox News Channel and questioned whether Americans had the āstomachā for an option that would require putting U.S. troops in harmās way.
Hours later, Trump announced he had decided to cancel orders for āvery hardā strikes on Iran and said a deal was close.
Vaez said even as Trump was posting on social media Thursday about escalating strikes, mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar had been making progress in their talks with Iran.
At the same time, Iran also may have reset the equation for Trump with its decision last weekend to attack Israel directly for the first time since the ceasefire after Israeli forces carried outĀ military strikes on Iranian-backed Hezbollah militantsĀ in Lebanon.
With the move, Iran signaled that Israel could no longer bomb Lebanon without facing a meaningful reaction and in the process also raised the cost for the U.S. to follow through on its commitment to help safeguard Israel.
āIt really does appear to me that Trump wants to bring this to an end, but his real challenge is that heās looking for a victory lap and an exit ramp and those two things are not necessarily compatible,ā Vaez said.
Trump expresses frustration with war narrative
Trump has been boasting since the early weeks of the conflict thatĀ heād already wonĀ the war ā much of the Islamic Republicās leadership has been killed in the bombings and the Iranian navy and air force have been severely degraded.
But Iran continues to effectively keep theĀ Strait of HormuzĀ closed, choking a waterway through which about 20% of the worldās oil supply passed before the war, and has yet to agree to restart negotiations with the U.S. over its concerns about IranāsĀ nuclear program,Ā the main reason Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave to justify launching the war.
But the real problem, Trump grumbled Thursday, was largely a public relations issue.
āThey could wave the white flag of surrender. They could say: āWe surrender, we surrender, weāre finished, weāve had it. The United States is the greatest power, praise be to Allah,āā Trump said on Fox News. āThey could say it loud and clear. And the fake news would say it was a great victory for Iran.ā
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 Iranās energy sector were intended to get the negotiations back to the āright place.ā
Polls show that the conflict isĀ largely unpopular with Americans.Ā McCaul said he believes the Iranians want to ātry to drag this out as long as they can,ā closer to the midterm elections in November, because they see that as being to their benefit.
War will be high on agenda at next weekās G7
Deal or no deal, the war will loom large during next weekās talks at the Group of Seven summit in bucolic Ćvian-les-Bains, France.
Trump has frequently criticized some of the group leaders ā British Prime MinisterĀ Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime MinisterĀ Giorgia MeloniĀ and German ChancellorĀ Friedrich MerzĀ ā for resisting his calls to aid the U.S. and Israeli war effort.
The four leaders have also angered Trump by criticizing how heās gone about executing the war and his lack of consultation with allies before jumping into a conflict thatās hurt the global economy as oil prices have surged.
But Trump said he is optimistic he could have an agreement before his talks with leaders in France.
āThe strait will officially open as soon as we sign, which could be soon, very soon ā maybe over the weekend in Europe,ā Trump said.
