President Trump on Thursday announced that he was once again postponing the deadline for Iran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz to shipping or face devastating strikes on its power plants.
Citing what he claimed was progress in talks to end the war, Mr. Trump said he would now hold off for 10 more days before targeting the plants. It was the second time he had postponed his deadline.
Iran, at least publicly, has denied that any negotiations are taking place, and has accused the Trump administration of simply trying to calm world markets. Stocks on Wall Street suffered their largest daily decline on Thursday since the start of the war, falling as oil prices rose sharply.
But Mr. Trump claimed on social media that the additional time was being given “per Iranian Government request.” The deadline is now April 6, he said. “Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well,” he wrote.
When he first announced the U.S. intention to strike the plants, last Saturday, he gave Iran 48 hours to open up the strait. On Monday, he extended it to Friday.
The new extension came after Mr. Trump ratcheted up pressure on Iran to accept a U.S. proposal to end the war, warning that otherwise “we’ll just keep blowing them away.” He issued the threat at a cabinet meeting hours after Israel said it had killed a naval commander who had been leading Iran’s effort to close a vital oil shipping route.
At the meeting, Mr. Trump and a top adviser offered differing assessments of Tehran’s openness to negotiations. Iran has publicly rejected the overtures, though privately it has signaled some willingness.
“They’ll tell you, ‘We’re not negotiating,’” Mr. Trump said. “Of course, they’re negotiating. They’ve been obliterated.”
Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for Mr. Trump, offered a more cautious interpretation. He said that he and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, were still trying to convince the Iranians “that this is the inflection point, with no good alternatives for them other than more death and destruction.”
And Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated that European and Asian allies of the United States should be more involved.
“Well, it’s in their interests to help,” Mr. Rubio said of allied countries just before flying to France for a meeting of top diplomats from the Group of 7 nations on Friday. “Very little of our energy comes through the Strait of Hormuz. It’s the world that has a great interest in that, so they should step up and deal with it.”
Although Mr. Trump says that Iran is willing to negotiate because it is close to defeat, missile launches by Iran at Israel continued unabated on Thursday.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
Commander killed: Israel said on Thursday that the Iranian naval commander it had killed, Alireza Tangsiri, played a pivotal role in shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Iran did not immediately comment on the claim.
Iran’s capital: Heavy explosions were heard in several parts of Tehran on Thursday evening, according to state media. Residents of the capital described unusually intense bombardment compared with those from recent nights. The reports came after Israeli officials said the military intended to step up its air campaign because of concerns the United States could soon bring the war to a halt.
War authorization: A senior Republican senator who has harshly criticized the Trump administration for keeping Congress in the dark about combat operations in Iran has begun drafting legislation that would force lawmakers to vote for the first time on whether to authorize the war. The senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, is working with a group of senators on a formal authorization for the use of military force against Iran, but has yet to introduce the resolution, a spokesman confirmed on Thursday. Read more ›
Lebanon: More than one million people have been displaced in Lebanon amid Israel’s war on Hezbollah, and many have fled to the capital, Beirut. Over 100,000 people are now relying on shelters in schools and other public buildings, as Israel plans to expand its occupation of southern Lebanon. Read more ›
Death tolls: The Human Rights Activists News Agency has reported that more than 1,492 civilians have been killed in Iran. More than 1,110 people in Lebanon have been killed, the health ministry there said on Thursday. At least 16 people have been killed in Iranian attacks on Israel, officials said. And the American death toll stands at 13 service members.
Six people were killed in a strike that damaged three homes in Iran’s Qom province, around 80 miles south of Tehran, the Fars news agency said on Friday. Morteza Haydari, an official at the Qom governor’s office, described the strike as a U.S.-Israeli attack, according to the report by Fars, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.
The Israeli military said it had completed a “wide-scale wave of strikes” targeting government infrastructure in Tehran early on Friday morning.
Earlier, Press TV, an Iranian state news agency, said Iran had launched strikes at Israel.
Israelis were warned to shelter in place and soon after were released. There were no casualties reported.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will not hold a news conference this week, the Pentagon said on Thursday. That means it will be Monday at the earliest until the two leaders take questions from reporters on the state of the Iran war — at least 11 days since their last news conference on March 19.
Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary, said in an email that Hegseth had provided updates at several public events with President Trump this week. And Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, this week posted two short videotaped operational updates. But none of those events offered reporters an opportunity to question Hegseth or the admiral.
An Israeli airstrike targeted the southern outskirts of Beirut, in an area known as a stronghold of Hezbollah, early on Friday morning in the Middle East. The strike came without prior warning.
Hezbollah on Thursday had announced 94 operations targeting Israel and Israeli troops in Lebanon, the highest number on a given day in the war so far. The number of attacks by the Lebanese militant group has escalated significantly in recent days as Israel plans to expand its occupation of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah said it had destroyed 50 Israeli tanks in the last two days.
President Trump on Thursday again delayed a deadline for Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, saying he would give Tehran 10 more days, until the new deadline of April 6 at 8 p.m., before potentially ordering strikes on Iran’s power plants.
On Thursday, minutes after the stock market ended one of its worst days this year, President Trump announced that he had extended his deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on its power plants.
The change, according to Mr. Trump, reflected that recent talks with the Iranians had been “going very well.” But his timing could not be ignored, given the president’s penchant for turning to the bully pulpit whenever his policies cause markets to get, as he says, “a little bit yippy.”
For investors, Thursday marked a brutal session of trading with stocks suffering their largest daily decline since the war with Iran began about four weeks ago. Bond prices slipped and the S&P 500 fell, while the price of Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, surged to just above $108 per barrel.
With risks to the U.S. economy mounting by the day, Mr. Trump has largely dismissed those disruptions as temporary and necessary in pursuit of security and stability in the Middle East. Earlier Thursday, the president even admitted at a cabinet meeting that the fallout “hasn’t been nearly as severe” as he first anticipated.
“Frankly, I thought the oil prices would go up more and I thought the stock market would go down more,” Mr. Trump said at one point.
But the president nonetheless has been sensitive to adverse movements in financial markets throughout his second term. Sometimes explicitly, he has responded with public comments and social media posts that appear designed to give stocks and bonds a jolt.
When his original slate of punishing tariffs triggered a global sell-off last year, for example, Mr. Trump tried to calm markets with an all-caps reassurance on Truth Social. “BE COOL,” he wrote at the time. “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!” Markets later soared.
The same dynamic has surfaced around the U.S. war with Iran, as financial markets and oil prices whipsaw in tandem with the president’s threats and his predictions as to when the conflict may end.
Last weekend, the president threatened to bomb Iranian energy facilities, in a move that could have further constrained the supply of oil, causing prices globally to swell. That led to a panic among investors, until Mr. Trump backed down on Monday, causing oil prices to fall and stocks to rise. He then set a new Friday deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
As the week progressed, Mr. Trump claimed that the Iranians were open to a deal — while officials in Tehran appeared to indicate that they were far from a resolution in hostilities. Consequently, trading remained volatile, and appeared to ebb and flow around the conflicting statements about the war.
By Thursday, with his original deadline approaching, Mr. Trump said on social media that he was “pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time.”
Shortly after, by Thursday evening, stock futures were up slightly.
Government bond yields, which underpin interest rates on consumer and corporate debt and trade later in the day than stocks, fell sharply after Trump’s announcement, only to keep rising afterward.
Joe Rennison contributed reporting.
A senior Republican senator who has harshly criticized the Trump administration for keeping Congress in the dark on combat operations in Iran has begun drafting legislation that would force lawmakers to vote for the first time on whether to authorize the war.
Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is working with a group of senators on a formal authorization for the use of military force against Iran, but has yet to introduce the resolution, a spokesman confirmed on Thursday. Such a measure would have to receive a swift vote in both chambers of Congress and would be all but certain to generate a politically charged debate just months before the midterm elections on a war that polls show is unpopular.
Reporting from Washington
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said European and Asian allies of the United States should help with securing the Strait of Hormuz for the shipping of global oil and gas supplies as President Trump extended a deadline he had given to Iran to fully reopen it.
“Well, it’s in their interests to help,” Mr. Rubio said of allied countries on Thursday just before flying to France for a meeting of top diplomats from the Group of 7 nations. “Very little of our energy comes through the Strait of Hormuz. It’s the world that has a great interest in that, so they should step up and deal with it.”
He added that it was notable that Iran recently has allowed a few tankers to pass through the strait, which the Iranian military has effectively closed to most Western-affiliated ships since the start of the war on Feb. 28. With around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies passing through the strait, the chokehold on global shipping has led to a surge in global oil and gas prices.
Mr. Trump said earlier Thursday that Iran had allowed eight ships to pass through the strait as a “gift,” or gesture of good faith ahead of any negotiations. Earlier this week, he gave Iran a deadline of Friday to allow full passage of ships through the waterway, but he said on Thursday afternoon that he would extend the deadline for 10 days, until April 6 at 8 p.m.
“There’s a growing amount of energy that’s flowing pretty great,” Mr. Rubio told reporters. “Not as much as could be flowing, but some of it has picked up.”
Mr. Rubio, who is also the White House national security adviser, said that intermediary nations were passing messages between the United States and Iran, and “progress has been made” on resolving the war. When the United States sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war, it was Pakistan that delivered the proposal, said two officials briefed on the diplomacy.
Asked whether negotiators for the warring parties would meet in person soon, Mr. Rubio said: “We’ll see. We’ll see how it turns out. I don’t want to prejudge it. I don’t want to predict.”
Mr. Rubio said the president had good reason to make remarks earlier that expressed skepticism of NATO allies.
“Right now, he’s just making the observation that I think there was a couple of leaders in Europe who said that this was not Europe’s war,” Mr. Rubio said, referencing the earlier complaints made by the president. “Well, Ukraine is not America’s war, and yet we’ve contributed more to that fight than any other country in the world. So it’ll be something to examine. The president will have to take into account down the road.”
Mr. Trump has beseeched leaders in Europe and Asia to send warships to help ward off Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, but the leaders have ignored him or said no. European allies have grown deeply suspicious of Mr. Trump, following rounds of tariff announcements, Mr. Trump’s threats to seize Greenland and his efforts to form a partnership with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
European and Asian officials also point out that Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel started the war without consulting with other leaders.
China is among the Asian nations that Mr. Trump has called on for help, but Iran is letting ships with oil bound for China pass through the strait. And China officials assess that America getting mired in another war in the Middle East is of strategic benefit for their nation, even if the conflict causes gyrations in energy markets.
When asked about his assessment of Russia’s support for Iran in the war, Mr. Rubio said, “I think Russia’s primarily concentrating on the war they have going on right now,” referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Beyond that, I don’t have anything to add right now.”
U.S. officials say Russia has provided intelligence to Iran during the war, including satellite imagery showing the locations of American warships and military personnel.
Sitting in a dimly lit room in a school turned shelter in Beirut, Zouheir Chahine reflected on how his life had changed.
Mr. Chahine, 50, arrived in Lebanon’s capital a week ago after leaving his home in the southern part of the country. He is among more than one million people who have been displaced in Lebanon in the more than three weeks since the start of Israel’s war with Hezbollah. Over 100,000 people, including Mr. Chahine, have been forced to rely on temporary shelters set up in schools and other public buildings; others are staying with relatives or sleeping in cars and on street sidewalks.
“I didn’t want to leave, but as the situation escalated, getting food became a challenge,” Mr. Chahine said.
Elsewhere in the school, Salam Mansour, 30, washed a pile of clothes with several other women. She, her husband and their three children fled their home just north of the Litani River in southern Lebanon after missiles struck their town. On Wednesday, the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, said that the Israeli military would expand its occupation of southern Lebanon and retain control of the land south of the Litani River.
Ms. Mansour remained defiant. “Even if it means sitting on rocks, we will return,” she said.
The influx of internally displaced people into Beirut has turned the capital into a city of dizzying contrasts. Along the promenade at the Mediterranean Sea, makeshift tent communities of the displaced sit not far from where the wealthy live in upscale apartments.
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