President Donald Trump speaks during a ceremony for newly sworn in Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, March 24, 2026.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
President Donald Trump said Tuesday the U.S. and Iran are “in negotiations right now” and suggested Tehran is eager to make a peace deal, even as the Islamic Republic has denied it is in direct talks with Washington.
Trump, speaking in the Oval Office, said he decided to back off from his recent threat to order strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure “based on the fact we’re negotiating.”
“They’re talking to us, and they’re talking sense,” Trump said when asked to further explain his pivot.
Later Tuesday, The New York Times, citing two unnamed officials, reported that the U.S. has sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war.
It was unclear how widely the plan — delivered through Pakistan — has been circulated among Iranian officials, the Times reported. It was also unclear if Israel, which is attacking Iran alongside the U.S., would support the plan, according to the newspaper.
A day earlier, Trump told reporters that there were “like 15” points of agreement between the U.S. and Iran. Keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon was “No. 1, 2 and 3” on that list, he said.
Trump, in the Oval Office on Tuesday, said that multiple U.S. officials are involved in the negotiations, name-checking Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
He has previously said U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and close advisor, were in talks with Iranian counterparts on Sunday evening.
Amid the messaging clash between the U.S. and Iran on negotiations, multiple outlets have reported that regional leaders are engaged in behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts to help broker an end to the war.
Earlier Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in an X post that his country is willing to facilitate talks between the two countries. Trump shared a screenshot of Sharif’s post on his official Truth Social account later Tuesday morning.
Asked if Trump’s post signaled he would accept Pakistan’s offer, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNBC, “These are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the United States will not negotiate through the news media.
“As President Trump and his negotiators explore this newfound possibility of diplomacy, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated to achieve the military objectives laid out by the commander in chief and the Pentagon,” Leavitt said.
In his remarks Tuesday afternoon, Trump repeated his claim that the U.S. has already won the war in Iran.
The main goal of the war, Trump said, was ensuring that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. “We’re talking about that, and I don’t want to say in advance, but they’ve agreed they will never have a nuclear weapon. They’ve agreed to that,” he said.
Yet the Trump administration has not backed off of plans to ask Congress to pass a major war-related supplemental funding bill, which could reportedly total $200 billion.
And earlier Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon is readying plans to deploy about 3,000 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East.
“All announcements regarding troop deployments will come from the Department of War. As we have said, President Trump always has all military options at his disposal,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told CNBC when asked about that report.
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