President Donald Trump has raised expectations that a deal with Iran to end the three-month-old war could be finalized this weekend, potentially during his trip to Europe for the G7 summit. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump claimed that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who is believed to have been wounded on the first day of the conflict and has not been seen in public since, is ready to sign off on an agreement.
Trump said he plans to dispatch Vice President JD Vance to the signing ceremony. The announcement comes after weeks of back-and-forth strikes that rendered a temporary ceasefire agreed to in early April all but meaningless.
Trump has threatened to escalate the conflict by seizing control of Iran's oil industry, including capturing the vital Kharg Island oil facility, but later appeared to back away from that option, questioning whether Americans had the stomach for putting troops in harm's way. Mediators from Pakistan, Turkey, and Qatar have been making progress in talks with Iran, according to Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group.
Iran's decision last weekend to attack Israel directly for the first time since the ceasefire, after Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, may have reset the equation for Trump, signaling that Israel could no longer bomb Lebanon without facing a meaningful reaction. Trump has been boasting since the early weeks of the conflict that he had already won the war, with much of Iran's leadership killed and its navy and air force severely degraded.
However, Iran continues to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, choking a waterway through which about 20% of the world's oil supply passed before the war. The conflict remains broadly unpopular with Americans, and the war will be high on the agenda at next week's G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France.
Trump has criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for resisting his calls to aid the U.S. and Israeli war effort.
Trump expressed optimism that an agreement could be reached before his talks with leaders in France, stating that the strait will officially open as soon as the deal is signed, which could be soon, very soon, maybe over the weekend in Europe.