WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday night that the United States had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, pulling back from threats of unprecedented destruction after Pakistan brokered a last-minute framework that required Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The announcement came roughly 90 minutes before an 8 p.m. ET deadline Trump had imposed for Iran to comply or face strikes on its power plants and bridges, infrastructure that legal experts had warned could affect tens of millions of Iranian civilians and risk violating international law. Earlier in the day, Trump had written on Truth Social that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
The ceasefire followed a frenzied diplomatic effort by the U.S., Iran and third-party mediators. Trump backed down from his threat of wide-scale destruction of Iranian civilian and military infrastructure after Iran agreed to reopen the strait.
The Wednesday morning Truth Social post at the center of the screenshot above was Trump’s follow-up to the ceasefire announcement itself, outlining his vision for what comes next. In it, Trump said the U.S. would work with Iran to “dig up and remove all of the deeply buried Nuclear Dust,” a reference to uranium stockpiles buried under rubble from prior strikes, and declared there would be “no enrichment of uranium.” He also said the two sides were discussing tariff and sanctions relief, and that many provisions of a 15-point framework had already been agreed to.
The reference to “B-2 Bombers” and “Nuclear Dust” alludes to U.S. strikes carried out in June 2025 on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities, which left highly enriched uranium stockpiles buried under rubble. Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, and U.S. intelligence agencies assessed last spring that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. The country has said it will not stop enriching uranium.
The ceasefire itself was conditioned on Iran’s compliance. Trump said he would suspend attacks on Iran for two weeks if Iranian leaders agreed to the “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING” of the Strait of Hormuz, a framework proposed by Pakistan. The ceasefire marks the most significant pause in a war that began February 28, when the U.S. and Israel launched a sweeping campaign against Iran’s military leadership, nuclear program and strategic infrastructure.
At least two vessels safely transited through the Strait of Hormuz within hours of the ceasefire announcement, though hundreds of tankers and cargo vessels remain backlogged in the Persian Gulf.
Both sides are claiming the outcome as a win. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council declared that “nearly all the objectives of the war have been achieved,” citing the general framework of its 10-point proposal as the basis for talks. Iran’s demands include lifting all sanctions, the return of overseas assets, withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, and a right to continue nuclear enrichment.
Trump disputed at least one version of that proposal. The Associated Press reported that a Farsi-language version of Iran’s 10-point plan included the phrase “acceptance of enrichment,” language that was absent from the English version shared with journalists. Trump called the Farsi version “fraudulent.”
The agreement does not cover all fronts of the conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel supports the U.S.-Iran ceasefire but that the accord does not apply to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who acted as the primary intermediary, said the ceasefire takes effect immediately and includes “Lebanon and elsewhere.” He has invited delegations from both the U.S. and Iran to Islamabad for continued talks on Friday, April 10.
Markets reacted sharply. Oil futures plummeted on the ceasefire news, with the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate falling more than 13% to below $92 a barrel in the hour after Trump’s announcement. Oil prices had spiked to multi-year highs after the Strait of Hormuz was effectively shut down following the start of the war.
The human cost of the six-week conflict remains severe. Preliminary figures show more than 2,076 dead in Iran, at least 26 in Israel, 13 U.S. soldiers killed and 28 fatalities across Gulf states. Iran has launched retaliatory strikes across nine countries in the region.
Whether the ceasefire holds, and whether formal talks in Islamabad produce a durable agreement, remains deeply uncertain. Iran has warned that any deviation from the terms would be met with immediate force.
