Trump extends deadline for striking Iran’s energy plants to April 6

President Donald Trump has extended his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by ten days to 6th April, pausing threatened strikes on Iranian energy plants as diplomacy continues through back channels — even as Tehran insists it is not negotiating with Washington.

Trump announced the extension on Thursday via Truth Social, saying talks were “going very well” despite what he described as false reporting to the contrary. He told Fox News that Iran had asked for a seven-day pause on strikes on energy plants, though peace talk mediators cited by the Wall Street Journal said Tehran made no such request. There was no immediate response from Iran.

It is the second extension Trump has granted. On 23rd March, he announced a five-day halt to threatened strikes on power plants and energy infrastructure. Thursday’s post stretched that to ten days. The contradictions surrounding the talks are deepening: Iran maintains it is not engaged in direct negotiations with the United States, and Trump has yet to identify who Washington is speaking with on the Iranian side — a significant gap, Reuters noted, given that many of Iran’s senior officials have been killed during four weeks of fighting.

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The proposal Iran rejected

The extension follows Iran’s formal rejection of a 15-point US proposal conveyed through Pakistan. Senior Iranian officials and a representative of the supreme leader reviewed the plan in detail on Wednesday and concluded it served only American and Israeli interests, an Iranian official told Reuters. The proposal reportedly called for dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme, curbing its ballistic missile capabilities, and effectively ceding control of the Strait of Hormuz — the waterway through which roughly 20 per cent of global oil and liquefied natural gas passes and which Iran has all but closed since the war began.

Diplomacy had not ended, the official said, but the gulf between the two sides remains wide. “Many see the Iranian regime as holding the upper hand and doubt that there are indeed productive negotiations with the US in process,” Sean Callow, senior foreign exchange analyst at ITC Markets, told Reuters.

Civilians caught in the crossfire

While diplomatic signals remain mixed, the military campaign has continued to exact a civilian toll. Iranian media reported strikes on residential areas in Tehran, Qom, and Urmia in the early hours of Friday. At least six people were killed when three homes in the Pardisan area of Qom were hit. In Tehran, Reuters reported that rescue workers pulled a survivor from the rubble of a residential building. A housing complex in Urmia sustained a direct missile strike, killing and injuring several civilians and destroying at least four residential units.

Israel said on Friday it had struck ballistic missile production sites and air defence systems across Iran overnight, describing the operations as aimed at degrading Iran’s missile capabilities.

Effects on markets and the global economy

The war’s fourth week has brought deepening economic strain. Crude oil prices have risen roughly 40 per cent since the conflict began, liquefied natural gas prices have spiked, and nitrogen-based fertiliser prices — critical to global food production — have climbed around 50 per cent, Reuters reported. Stock markets fell sharply in the United States and Europe on Thursday and followed suit in Asia on Friday.

Iran has continued to strike Israel, US military bases, and Gulf states throughout the week. The United Arab Emirates told the US and Western allies it would join a multinational maritime taskforce to reopen the strait, the Financial Times reported, though several other US allies have declined requests to send ships. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is considering deploying up to 10,000 additional ground troops to the region, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing department officials. Reuters also confirmed for the first time that the US has deployed unmanned drone speedboats for patrol operations in an active conflict.

Trump suggested on Thursday that Iran allow ten oil tankers — including some Pakistani-flagged vessels — to transit the strait as a goodwill gesture. Tehran has not responded.