US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he would be pausing planned strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure for another 10 days as negotiations continue, setting a new deadline of April 6.
"As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
The President added that "talks are ongoing" and claimed they are progressing positively "despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others."
Speaking about the decision in an interview with Fox News later on Thursday, Trump said Iranian officials had requested more time through intermediaries ahead of a potential escalation, and that he agreed to extend a deadline from seven to 10 days.
“They asked for seven, and I gave them 10," he said, adding that talks were ongoing and “going fairly well."
Trump warned that if Iran failed to meet US demands, Washington could target additional infrastructure, including power plants.
He further told Fox News that the United States “knocked out" most of Iran’s missile capabilities and key military systems during the strikes.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump commented on the progress of Operation Epic Fury at a cabinet meeting, saying, "Over the past three weeks, we’ve been hitting Iran's military capabilities at a level that few people have ever seen before. It's a display of force and precision and skill like nothing the world has really witnessed."
"We're crushing their missile and drone stockpiles, destroying their defense industrial base, we've wiped out their navy completely, their air force completely. We've wiped out a large percentage of their missiles and missile launchers. Without the launchers, the missiles don't do any good. We've wiped out probably close to 90 percent of the launchers [and] probably, more than 90 percent of the missiles themselves," he added. "We've also destroyed a lot of the factories where they manufactured the drones and the missiles."
Trump further stated that Iran is "begging to make a deal, not me. They're begging to make a deal. And anyone who saw what was happening over there would understand why they want to make a deal."
He also stated that Iran's representatives are lying when they deny that talks are taking place, adding that Iran should have made a deal long before the current conflict.
On Wednesday night, Trump said during a speech in Washington that the Iranians want to make a deal but are afraid to admit it.
“I've never seen anything like we're doing in the Middle East with Iran. And they are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they're afraid to say it, because they figure they'll be killed by their own people. They're also afraid they'll be killed by us," the President stated.
He quipped, “There's never been a head of a country that wanted that job less than being the head of Iran. We listen to some of the things they say, we hear them very clearly. They say, ‘I don't want it, we'd like to make you the next supreme leader. No thank you, I don't want it.’"