Trump Pauses Project Freedom, Warns of Bombing Iran if No Deal Reached

President Donald Trump paused the short-lived Project Freedom, an effort to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz, after claiming progress toward a complete and final agreement with Iran. The move calmed oil markets and raised hopes for a breakthrough.

Trump tempered those expectations himself. Iran stated Wednesday it was reviewing a new US proposal. US media cited unnamed American officials saying the sides were nearing a one-page memorandum to end the Gulf war.

A source close to mediators in Pakistan told Reuters, "We will close this very soon. We are getting close."

Hours after posting on Truth Social Tuesday evening that he was suspending Project Freedom to see if the agreement could be finalized and signed, Trump shifted tone. He said Wednesday morning that an Iran deal was a "big assumption" and if no agreement came, bombing would resume "at a much higher level and intensity than it was before."

The threat came less than 24 hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced at the White House that Operation Epic Fury, the US-led strikes on Iran, was over.

Later Wednesday morning, Trump expressed optimism in a brief call with PBS about deal prospects, while noting past failures. "I felt that way before with them," he said. "So we'll see what happens."

Trump told PBS it was "unlikely" he would send US envoys for a second round of peace talks in Islamabad.

Axios and Reuters reported Washington and Tehran were approaching a one-page, 14-point memorandum to end the war. The plan would halt hostilities, followed by talks to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, lift sanctions and limit Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Axios also noted skepticism among some US officials about deal prospects and approval amid Iran's leadership factions.

Iranian parliamentarian Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesperson for Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, wrote on X that Axios's 14 points were a US "wish list." He said Iran "has its finger on the trigger and is ready" if the US did not grant concessions.

"Clearly, the administration thinks a deal is possible, given the way they publicly rolled out Project Freedom only to suddenly pause it hours later," Grant Rumley, a former Middle East policy adviser to the Biden and Trump administrations, told the BBC.

"But we have been here before, and we've seen negotiations collapse at the last minute for a variety of reasons," added Rumley, now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Trump has said repeatedly since the April 7 ceasefire that Iran agreed to US demands and a deal was near. On April 17, he told CBS that Iran had "agreed to everything" and would let the US remove its enriched uranium, a claim Tehran officials rejected.

In the Oval Office Wednesday, Trump said, "They want to make a deal, they want to negotiate." He added, "And we'll see whether or not they are agreeing."

Even if a one-page memorandum was reached, Rumley said it was "highly unlikely" to resolve all issues, especially technical nuclear details. The Obama administration took over 20 months to finalize such a deal.

Shipping experts said Project Freedom, announced Sunday, had limited impact initially, with only a handful of ships passing through the strait.