Trump warns of fresh strikes if Iran talks fail – New York Post
President Donald Trump has said that US warships are being reloaded with weaponry to strike Iran if talks in Pakistan fail to produce a deal, in an interview with the New York Post.
“We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made – even better than what we did previously and we blew them apart,” the Post quoted Trump as saying.
“And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively.”
He added:
We’re going to find out in about 24 hours. We’re going to know soon.
In a brief and cryptic message on his Truth Social network earlier, Trump had spoken of the “WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL RESET!!!”
Key events
Lebanon and Israel agree to hold first meeting in Washington
Lebanon and Israel have agreed to hold their first meeting on Tuesday at the U.S. State department to discuss announcing a ceasefire and setting a date to begin talks.
Lebanon’s presidency said Lebanon and Israel held their first contact via a telephone call between their ambassadors in Washington on Friday.
Iranian delegation arrives in Islamabad ahead of talks with US
The Iranian negotiating delegation led by parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf arrived in Islamabad for peace talks with the United States, Iranian media reported, adding that negotiations would begin if Washington accepted Tehran’s “preconditions”.
The delegation includes senior political, military and economic officials, including Iranian foreign minister, defence council secretary, central bank governor and several members of parliament.
Britain will host further talks on reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane with a coalition of countries next week.
The meeting will continue the UK government’s efforts to restore freedom of navigation to the strait, which provides shipping routes for oil and gas.
It comes after the Prime Minister spoke to Donald Trump about the need for a “practical plan” to get ships going through the area amid suggestions Iran wants to charge vessels for passage.
An official with knowledge of the planning has said the meeting is expected to look for ways to support a sustainable end to the conflict and focus on increasing international diplomatic pressure on Iran to reopen the strait.
This includes exploring coordinated economic and political measures, such as sanctions, and working with the International Maritime Organisation to secure the release of thousands of ships and sailors trapped in the strait.
White House opted against televised address about Iran ceasefire – report
The White House considered but decided against a national televised address by Donald Trump on Tuesday to announce the ceasefire deal with Iran, with some aides and advisers privately voicing concern about potentially overselling the still-nascent agreement, three US officials have told Reuters.
The decision suggests a balancing act by the Trump administration, which sought to project early confidence in the deal to pause fighting and open the strait of Hormuz even as aides recognised its fragility.
Ahead of talks slated to begin on Saturday in Islamabad, it is far from clear if the ceasefire will translate into a negotiated settlement to the war.
Reuters’ sources said Trump was talked out of making the speech. But the White House denied the discussions rose to Trump’s level. It said in a statement:
This is fake news. This was never even discussed with the president.
As you will remember, Trump ended up announcing the ceasefire in a social media post just hours before his Tuesday 8pm ET deadline, after which he had threatened to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilisation”.
One of the sources told Reuters that Trump had been “adamant” about delivering the address. The officials said it had been under consideration, but the White House did not move forward with it because details of the ceasefire were still shaky.
Trump’s senior advisers were working through what was in the deal and did not think they had enough clarity for the US president to address the nation, the sources said.
One senior White House official acknowledged internal discussions about Trump addressing the nation on Tuesday night.
“There was chatter about it, but obviously it didn’t come to fruition, and we didn’t alert the networks or anything; it didn’t get that far,” the official told Reuters, without confirming whether Trump was talked out of giving an address.
Ceasefire talks in Islamabad are ‘make or break’ for permanent US-Iran ceasefire, says Pakistani PM
This weekend’s negotiations between Iran and the US in Islamabad are “make or break” to achieve a permanent ceasefire, Pakistan’s prime minister has said.
Shehbaz Sharif said in a televised address:
This is a make-or-break moment. I ask all of you to pray that these talks are successful and countless lives are saved and the world shall see peace.
He said that – “God-willing” – negotiators from both the US and Iran would be present for the talks in Islamabad on Saturday, adding that hosting the talks is “not just a proud moment for Pakistan but for the entire Muslim world”.
US vice-president JD Vance boarded a plane bound for the negotiations in Pakistan on Friday morning, saying that he was “looking forward” to the talks and he expected them to be positive, though he warned Iran not to “play” the United States.
There are conflicting reports over whether Iran’s delegation, which will include parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, has departed for Islamabad.
Ghalibaf said on Friday that two previously agreed measures, a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets, “must be fulfilled before negotiations begin”.
Lebanon updates death toll from Israel’s horrendous Wednesday attacks to 357
Lebanon’s health ministry has updated the death toll from Israel’s most brutal strikes on the country in years on Wednesday to 357 killed.
The health ministry said that with rubble removal operations ongoing and “the presence of a very large number of remains, which require time to complete DNA testing and confirm the identities of the victims”, the figure remains “non-final”.
It brings the total killed since Israel renewed its offensive on 2 March to more than 1,953 people. The number of people wounded stands at 6,303, the health ministry added.
There has to be a ceasefire in Lebanon and it is “not acceptable” to be “negotiating under bombardment”, the country’s minister of social affairs has said, accusing Israel of committing war crimes by targeting civilians.
Haneen Sayed told Sky News that “what happened two days ago was really unbelievable”. In a punishing wave of strikes across Lebanon, Israel killed more than 300 people and injured over 1,000 others on Wednesday.
Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, accused Israel in a statement of targeting “densely populated residential neighbourhoods” and killing unarmed civilians in breach of international law.
“It goes beyond what anyone expected,” Sayed said, adding that it’s a “huge calamity”.
Despite international condemnation, Israel has continued to bombard Lebanon since, insisting that the country was never included in the ceasefire agreed by the US and Iran, even though Iran and Pakistan – which helped broker the deal – said it was.
Lebanon and Iran are demanding that Israel must agree to a ceasefire before talks between Lebanon and Israel can begin. Israel, meanwhile, has insisted that “talks will be held under fire”.
Sayed said that was an unacceptable expectation.
Negotiating under bombardment and, you know, bombs falling over our heads is not acceptable. So that’s a condition.
There “has to be a ceasefire”, she said.
She also accused Israel of committing war crimes.
I can say war crimes have been committed. There is no explainable reason why that many … civilians and health workers are targeted. Entire buildings were flattened, as you know.
People are still burying their dead, she said, after the country observed a day of mourning on Thursday.
Trump’s war on Iran, Melania and Epstein, with Guardian US editor Betsy Reed – podcast
Melania Trump made a surprise appearance at the White House on Thursday to announce that she “never had a relationship” with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Her address has seemingly put Epstein back on the political agenda when focus had been firmly on the US and Israel’s war in Iran.
The intervention came at a difficult time for her husband, Donald Trump, as the fragile ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran seemed to be at risk of falling apart, and as US lawmakers are raising the alarm over the president’s mental stability.
In today’s edition of The Latest podcast, Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian US editor, Betsy Reed, Trump’s rhetoric in the Iran war, and whether there is anything to be hopeful about in US politics.
US inflation soars in March as war on Iran drives economy into uncertainty
Lauren Aratani
US inflation soared in March amid the US-Israel war with Iran, with prices up 0.9% compared with last month and 3.3% over the year, according to new data released on Friday.
The spike in the consumer price index (CPI), which measures the price of a basket of goods and services, is the largest in nearly two years and the first official measure of how the conflict has affected US consumer prices, particularly as Iran blocked the strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas would typically pass.
The index for energy rose 10.9% in March, led by a 21.2% increase in the index for gasoline which accounted for nearly three-quarters of the monthly all items increase. Airfares rose 2.7% in March and were 14.9% higher than a year earlier.
Core inflation – which strips out volatile food and energy prices – rose at a more modest 0.2% over the month and was 2.6% higher over the year.
The annualized inflation rate has not pushed past 3% since summer 2024, when inflation was finally cooling after reaching a generational high of 9.1% in June 2022.
The war on Iran has driven the American economy into deeper uncertainty, adding to a precariousness that first came with Donald Trump’s tariffs last year. Inflation reached a four-year low last April, when price increases dropped to 2.3%. It rose to 3% by September, before coming back down to 2.4% in January and February.
Oil prices dropped after Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran, which agreed to reopen the strait during the ceasefire period, but oil prices still remain high. Even after the agreement was announced, US crude oil was still priced 10% higher than before the conflict and nearly 30% higher since the start of the year.
Read the full story here:
The day so far
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US vice-president JD Vance has warned Iran not to “play” the US as he headed overseas for negotiations aimed at ending their war. Vance, who has long been sceptical of foreign military interventions and outspoken about the prospect of sending troops into open-ended conflicts, set off Friday to lead mediated talks with Iran in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
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President Donald Trump has said that US warships are being reloaded with weaponry to strike Iran if talks in Pakistan fail to produce a deal, in an interview with the New York Post. “We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made – even better than what we did previously and we blew them apart,” the Post quoted Trump as saying.
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Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Friday that two previously agreed measures, a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets, must be implemented before negotiations begin. In a post on X on Friday, Qalibaf said the steps were part of commitments made between the parties and warned that talks should not start until they were fulfilled, amid mounting disputes over ceasefire terms and continued hostilities in Lebanon.
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US negotiators intend to request the release of Americans detained in Iran as part of upcoming talks aimed at ending the war, according to media reports. The Washington Post cited people briefed on the plans in its report.
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Iran-backed Hezbollah fired around 30 projectiles from Lebanon into Israel on Friday, the Israeli military said, reporting that some strikes caused damage. Air-raid sirens were activated across northern Israel near the Lebanese border, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have continued to exchange fire despite a truce in the broader conflict involving Iran.
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Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun said on Friday that 13 state security personnel were killed in an Israeli strike on a governmental building in the southern city of Nabatieh. In a statement, Aoun condemned continued Israeli attacks and said targeting state institutions would not deter Lebanon from defending its sovereignty, Reuters reported.
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Israel’s foreign affairs ministry announced Spanish representatives will not be allowed access to the US-led centre responsible for monitoring the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip due to what it described as a “blatant anti-Israeli bias”. In a statement on its website, the ministry said the decision was made to block Spain from participating in the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in light of “the anti-Israel obsession of [Spanish] Prime Minister [Pedro] Sánchez’s government and its serious harm to Israeli (and also American) interests – including during the war against Iran”.
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European airports have said jet fuel shortages could hit the summer holiday season, if oil supplies do not start to flow through the strait of Hormuz within the next three weeks. Airports Council International (ACI) Europe wrote to Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the EU transport commissioner, saying the bloc is three weeks away from shortages.
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The Israeli military has claimed to have destroyed more than 200 Hezbollah rocket launchers since the start of the conflict. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement online that it destroyed more than 200 rocket launchers, including approximately 1,300 launch tubes, belonging to the Iran-backed militant group since 2 March.
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Keir Starmer said he used a call with Donald Trump to set out the views of Gulf states, the Press Association reported. “I had a discussion with president Trump last night and set out to him the views of the region here, these Gulf states are the neighbours of Iran, and therefore, if the ceasefire is to hold – and we hope it will – it has to involve them,” the UK prime minister said in Qatar, where he was on the final leg of his Middle East tour.
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Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s senior diplomatic envoy, said on X that his country will review regional and international ties in light of attacks by Iran to “determine who can be relied upon”. The UAE’s defence ministry said yesterday that its air defences have intercepted 537 ballistic missiles, 26 cruise missiles and 2,256 drones since the start of the war.
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The UN children’s agency, Unicef, reported that nearly 600 children have been killed or injured in Lebanon since the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war on 2 March. More than 30 children were killed and nearly 150 injured by the wave of bombings carried out on Wednesday by Israeli troops, Unicef said.
Trump says Iran has ‘no cards’ ahead of negotiations
Donald Trump said that Iran has “no cards” ahead of peace talks in Pakistan in a post on social media this afternoon.
Writing on Truth Social, he said:
The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!
Trump warns of fresh strikes if Iran talks fail – New York Post
President Donald Trump has said that US warships are being reloaded with weaponry to strike Iran if talks in Pakistan fail to produce a deal, in an interview with the New York Post.
“We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made – even better than what we did previously and we blew them apart,” the Post quoted Trump as saying.
“And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively.”
He added:
We’re going to find out in about 24 hours. We’re going to know soon.
In a brief and cryptic message on his Truth Social network earlier, Trump had spoken of the “WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL RESET!!!”
Iran-backed Hezbollah fired around 30 projectiles from Lebanon into Israel on Friday, the Israeli military said, reporting that some strikes caused damage.
Air-raid sirens were activated across northern Israel near the Lebanese border, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have continued to exchange fire despite a truce in the broader conflict involving Iran.
Israeli emergency services reported a strike in Safed, where a direct hit damaged several vehicles, AFP reported.
The emergency services reported additional impacts in the Galilee region, including in Baana and Deir al-Assad, where a building was hit.
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