Administration

Trump says military is ‘loading up the ships’ if peace talks with Iran go south in Pakistan

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by Mallory Wilson - 04/10/26 12:38 PM ET

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by Mallory Wilson - 04/10/26 12:38 PM ET

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President Trump said Friday that he is ready to use the U.S. military to resume strikes on Iran if peace talks in Pakistan are not successful.

“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,” Trump told the New York Post.

“But we’re loading up the ships. We’re loading up the ships with the best weapons ever made, even at a higher level than we use to do a complete decimation,” he said.

No deal, he said, will lead to the weapons being use “very effectively.”

Vice President Vance is traveling to Islamabad on Friday with special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to try and come to a final agreement with Iran after a two-week ceasefire deal was struck earlier this week.

Trump said “we’re going to find out in about 24 hours” if the talks were successful. The White House said the first round of discussions is set for Saturday local time.

Trump on Truth Social a short time after the interview was criticizing the Iranians, saying they “don’t seem to realize they have no cards other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways.”

The Iranian side of the negotiations will be represented by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, whose defiance of the U.S. has been steadfast.

“You’re dealing against people that we don’t know whether or not they tell the truth,” Trump told the Post.

“To our face, they’re getting rid of all nuclear weapons, everything’s gone. And then they go out to the press and say, ‘No, we’d like to enrich,’” he said. “So, we’ll find out.”

Vance told reporters as he was departing Friday that he was heading to the talks with “pretty clear guidelines” from the president, but he was hopeful they would be “positive.”

“As the president of the United States said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand,” he said. “If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive.”

“So, we’re going to try to have a positive negotiation. The president gave us some pretty clear guidelines, and we’re going to see,” he added.

The ceasefire is already on rocky terms over different interpretations of whether the ceasefire included an end to strikes on Lebanon along with Iran. The Iranians maintain Lebanon was included, but the U.S. and Israel have said it’s not.

Ghalibaf wrote on social media Friday there will be no negotiations with the U.S. without a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of blocked Iranian assets.

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