Vice President JD Vance stayed put at the White House on Tuesday after his planned departure for Pakistan was scrapped at the last minute, a sign that the administration's push for an Iran peace deal has hit a wall with fewer than 24 hours before the ceasefire expires.
President Trump told CNBC Tuesday morning that he "expects to be bombing Iran" if Tehran refuses to come to the table before Wednesday's 8 p.m. ET deadline. He added bluntly that "the military is raring to go."
The two-week ceasefire that Trump agreed to earlier this month, after initially threatening military action over the Strait of Hormuz, is now set to lapse without a single confirmed meeting between American and Iranian negotiators. Iran's Foreign Ministry has publicly stated it has "no plans for the next round of negotiations." And the Daily Mail reported that senior White House officials plan to hold meetings Tuesday alongside Vance to chart a path forward.
Trump had previously said Vance would leave Washington for Islamabad on Tuesday morning to lead a proposed peace summit. Those plans fell apart as uncertainty grew over whether Iran would even show up. Pakistan's Information Minister Attaullah Tarar confirmed that Tehran had not made a decision to meet with the United States, despite what he called Pakistan's "sincere efforts to convince" the regime.
Pakistan's foreign minister urged both Washington and Tehran to consider extending the ceasefire by another two weeks, calling on both sides "to give dialogue and diplomacy a chance." Trump, for his part, said he does not want to extend the truce.
The vice president's role in this standoff has been central. Vance recently dismissed media attempts to drive a wedge between himself and the president on Iran, and his aborted trip to Pakistan underscores just how quickly the diplomatic picture has deteriorated.
Tehran is not merely declining to negotiate. It is making a public show of refusal. Iran's parliament speaker Mohammed-Bagher Ghalibaf said Monday that the regime is "prepared" to renew fighting against U.S.-Israel forces in the Middle East. He went further in a post on X:
"We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats, and in the past two weeks, we have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield."
That language is worth reading twice. While the White House worked to arrange talks, Iran's senior legislative leader was promising "new cards on the battlefield." Whatever those cards are, the regime clearly believes it holds leverage, and intends to use it.
The standoff traces back to Trump's ultimatum over the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint that accounts for roughly one-fifth of global oil trade. The president imposed a naval blockade after Tehran refused to suspend its nuclear program. In recent days, U.S. forces have escalated by boarding and seizing tankers destined for Iranian ports.
The administration's strategy, using the Hormuz blockade to pressure Tehran back to the table after initial Vance-led negotiations collapsed, has not yet produced the desired result. Iran has dug in. And the clock is ticking.
This is not an abstract foreign-policy chess match. Global oil markets remain volatile as the conflict enters its 53rd day. U.S. gas prices have climbed above $4 per gallon on average. Every day the standoff continues, American families pay more at the pump.
Trump acknowledged the narrow window in his CNBC interview Tuesday, stating plainly: "We don't have much time [to get a deal]... Iran can make themselves into a strong nation again if they make a deal." He also vowed to target Iran's energy infrastructure should diplomacy fail, warning that otherwise "lots of bombs start going off."
The president's willingness to state consequences plainly, rather than hide behind diplomatic euphemism, is the approach his supporters elected him to take. Whether it moves Tehran remains an open question. Vance has shown a similar directness in domestic confrontations, and his grounding at the White House suggests the administration is recalibrating in real time rather than flying into a summit with an empty chair across the table.
The ceasefire expires at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday. If no breakthrough materializes, the United States faces a binary choice: extend a truce the president has said he does not want to extend, or resume military operations against a regime that is openly taunting Washington.
Several questions remain unanswered. Will Vance still travel to Pakistan if Iran reverses course? What specific terms were on the table for the proposed Islamabad summit? And what legal or military framework governs the tanker seizures now underway in the Strait of Hormuz? None of these have been publicly clarified.
Iran's posture, refusing talks, threatening escalation, and running out the clock, looks designed to test American resolve. Ghalibaf's battlefield rhetoric and the Foreign Ministry's flat refusal to negotiate suggest a regime betting that Washington will blink first.
That bet may prove costly. Trump has shown a pattern throughout this crisis: threaten, pause, offer a window, and then follow through when the window closes. He backed off the initial military threat and agreed to the ceasefire. He sent Vance to lead negotiations. He gave Pakistan space to broker a meeting. None of it worked. Vance, who has not shied from confrontation on other fronts, now sits at the White House while the administration decides what comes next.
For American taxpayers watching gas prices climb and a hostile regime stall for time, the patience of the past two weeks has been expensive. The question now is whether Tehran's defiance will cost Iran far more.
Diplomacy works only when both sides show up. One side did. The vice president packed his bags and then unpacked them. The regime in Tehran never bothered to pack at all.
