Trump Gives Iran 10 to 15 Days for a Deal as U.S. Forces Mass in the Gulf

President Trump said Thursday that Iran has 10 to 15 days to reach a “meaningful deal” with the United States, warning that “bad things happen” if it does not, according to Al Jazeera, PBS News (AP) and CBS News. He first spoke at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace in Washington. “It’s proven to be, over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran, and we have to make a meaningful deal. Otherwise bad things happen,” he said, as quoted by the AP.

“Maybe we’re going to make a deal. You’re going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days,” Trump said, adding that “we may have to take it a step further. Or we may not,” per Al Jazeera and NBC News. Later, answering reporters’ questions, he said 10 to 15 days would be “enough time,” the AP and Al Jazeera reported, and CBS quoted him calling that “pretty much maximum” for a timeframe.

The deadline follows a second round of indirect talks in Geneva on Tuesday. Iran’s foreign minister said the sides reached broad agreement on guiding principles, Al Jazeera noted, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that “we’re still very far apart on some issues,” CBS reported. The AP wrote that the talks have been deadlocked for years, that Iran has refused to discuss wider U.S. and Israeli demands to scale back its missile program and cut ties to armed groups, and that one or both sides could be buying time for war preparations. A senior U.S. official told the AP that Iran agreed to draw up a written proposal, and that the “full forces” needed for potential military action are expected to be in place by mid-March; CBS reported the same mid-March timing from a U.S. official.

The military buildup continues. The USS Abraham Lincoln strike group is already in the region and a second carrier group, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is on its way, CBS reported; the AP placed the Ford near the mouth of the Mediterranean and said it would likely take more than a week to reach the coast of Iran. Al Jazeera also described two aircraft carriers amassed in the Gulf region. The AP said the deployments do not guarantee a strike but strengthen Trump’s ability to carry one out.

Iran struck a defiant tone. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote on X that “a warship is a dangerous piece of military hardware,” but “more dangerous than that warship is the weapon that can send that warship to the bottom of the sea,” according to Al Jazeera and CBS. The AP reported that Iran held annual drills with Russia on Thursday and earlier in the week held a live-fire drill in the Strait of Hormuz, the passage for a fifth of the world’s traded oil.

Trump has so far held off on striking Iran after setting red lines over the killing of peaceful protesters and mass executions, the AP wrote, and Al Jazeera said he appeared to step back last month when he said Iran had agreed to halt executions of dissidents.