‘One last chance’: The times Trump threatened Iran, said deal imminent

Published 4 August 2026 · india

The US president has claimed Iran is ‘desperate’ to do a deal or given Tehran a ‘last chance’ on multiple occasions. Just over one month

The US president has claimed Iran is ‘desperate’ to do a deal or given Tehran a ‘last chance’ on multiple occasions. Just over one month into the war on Iran, US President Donald Trump made an apocalyptic threat that raised the alarm in Washington and Middle Eastern capitals alike, attached to a tight deadline. If Iran didn’t immediately reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz, Trump warned on April 7, “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”. Tehran didn’t blink. And with two hours to the deadline, Trump walked back the threat and instead announced a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Islamabad. Since then, the US president has repeated this pattern multiple times. It goes like this: Trump ups the ante, shaking up the markets, and then dials it back down at the 11th hour, apparently hoping this strategy will influence negotiations. On Monday, Trump again insisted that negotiations were close to ending the war – and, yet again, gave “duplicitous” Iran “one last chance” to make a deal or suffer catastrophic strikes. For its part, Tehran denies any ongoing talks with the US, saying it is only talking to Oman about how to manage the Hormuz strait, the closure of which has caused oil prices to soar amid havoc in energy markets around the world. The war is now in its 23rd week, with no end to hostilities in sight, and both Washington and Tehran are more entangled than before, with additional variables in the conflict that could determine its direction. So, how many times has Trump given Iran “one last chance” to make a deal or suffer the consequences, before walking his threat back? And how many times have we heard from the US president that a deal is just around the corner? The times Trump threatened heavy attacks – before backing down There have been several times since February 28, when the US and Israel launched their first joint attacks on Iran, that Trump has threatened an attack but did not follow through.

March Less than a month into the war, Trump threatened Tehran over its closure of the Strait of Hormuz, saying the US would strike Iran’s power plants if the critical waterway was not reopened. Two days later, he postponed the strikes for five days, citing “progress” in talks. As the delayed deadline neared on March 26, Trump delayed the strikes again, this time for 10 days, claiming that Tehran requested it. April Then came the April 7 threat that a whole “civilisation will die”, before Trump called off those strikes and announced a two-week ceasefire, to give Iran a chance to reach a peace deal. No deal emerged. And then, after threatening to strike Iran “harder”, and in the final hours of the ceasefire, on April 21, Trump announced an indefinite ceasefire, saying Pakistani mediators had asked him to do so. May With those talks making no progress, Trump returned to his threats to strike Iran on May 17, saying “nothing will be left” of Iran if Tehran did not make a deal with the US. But the next day, Trump again told reporters that he had decided to “put it off for a little while, hopefully maybe forever, but possibly for a little while, because we’ve had very big discussions with Iran”. By May 27, US strikes were back on after negotiations faltered, once again. June On June 11, after two days of back-and-forth strikes, Trump threatened the US would take “total control” of Iran’s oil and gas industries. But then, a few hours later, he posted on social media, claiming there had been a breakthrough in negotiations and called off the attacks. On June 17, the US and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), announcing a ceasefire and a 60-day period to complete negotiations for a lasting peace. Within days, that had fallen apart over the glaring gaps in the two sides’ positions over the contents of the MoU, triggered mainly by who had control of the Strait of Hormuz – and both sides returned to tit-for-tat, widening strikes.