President Donald Trump has declared that the war in Iran was ‘close to over’ as the White House is reportedly preparing to hold a second round of peace talks with Iranian officials in Pakistan.
Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo left the White House Tuesday evening, and posted a short clip teasing her interview with the president that is set to air Wednesday morning.
‘One thing that I’ll leave you with – I said to him, “Mr President, you keep talking about the war like, “was, was, was,”‘ she told her followers.
‘I said, “Is it over?” He said, “It’s over.”‘
In a video released by Fox News, the president sounded confident, although a bit more cautious than Bartiromo described.
‘I think it’s close to over. Yeah. I mean I view it as very close to over,’ Trump said.
The announcement came amid reports that the president is considering sending Vice President JD Vance back to Pakistan for a second round of peace talks with Iranian officials.
The vice president previously met with Iranian authorities in Islamabad on Saturday to discuss a deal to end the war during the two-week ceasefire agreed upon by both sides.
But those negotiations ended without any deal after the Iranians pushed for the right to enrich uranium for 20 years, Trump has said.
Still, Vance – along with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner – have been continuing to engage with Iranians and their intermediaries, CNN reports.
Amid these discussions, Trump administration officials are said to be drawing up plans for a second round of peace talks.
‘Further talks are under discussion, but nothing has been scheduled at this time,’ an unidentified US official told CNN.
Yet Trump had earlier told the New York Post that ‘something could be happening’ over the next two days, before the ceasefire deal expires.
The president had reportedly been weighing three different options to force Iran back to the negotiating table, including holding off on direct military strikes while maintaining a significant US military presence in the region.
His other options involve limited military action, such as targeted strikes on the regime’s nuclear, ballistic missile, and energy facilities.
The final option is a maximalist strategy aimed at overthrowing the regime by carrying out attacks against senior Iranian leadership.
However, the president appears reluctant to restart a full bombing campaign, wary that it would further inflame tensions in the region, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Sources say the escalation risks widening the war across the Middle East, even as economic strain rises in the US amid President Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz – a narrow waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.
Since the start of the war, US gas prices have been above $4 nationwide and global oil prices have been past $100 a barrel.
Moreover, US wholesale prices surged last month as the war drove up the cost of energy.
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that its producer price index – which measures inflation before it hits consumers – rose 0.5 percent from February and four percent from March 2025.
The situation may now grow even more fraught, as Saudi Arabia has warned Trump that Iran may shut down the Middle East’s remaining oil routes in retaliation for his naval blockade.
Riyadh fears Tehran could deploy its Houthi proxy in Yemen to disrupt the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a critical artery carrying 10 percent of global trade between Asia and European markets via the Suez Canal.
Trump is now facing mounting pressure from Riyadh to lift the Hormuz blockade and return to negotiations with Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, warned on April 5 that Iran ‘views Bab al-Mandeb as it does Hormuz.’
If Washington ‘dares to repeat its foolish mistakes, it will soon realize that the flow of global energy and trade can be disrupted with a single move,’ he added.
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, also warned Tehran could throttle the Bab al-Mandeb, Arabic for ‘Gate of Tears,’ a stretch notorious for its treacherous navigation.
‘What share of global oil, gas, wheat, rice, and fertilizer shipments transits the Bab al-Mandeb Strait?’ he asked on April 3. ‘Which countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the strait?’
