President Donald Trump is reportedly relocating U.S. naval ships and filling them with "the best ammunition" in order to resume strikes on Iran if ceasefire negotiations fail.
The president told The New York Post that he would have a better idea of his next steps sometime in the next day.
“We’re going to find out in about 24 hours. We’re going to know soon,” Trump told the outlet ahead of peace talks in Islamabad this weekend.
Vice President JD Vance will join special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to conduct peace negotiations with Iran that aim to bring hostilities between Washington and Tehran to an end.
If those talks fail Trump seems poised to reignite the conflict.
“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 outlet Friday. “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 used to do a complete decimation."
He promised that if a deal isn't reached, "we will be using [the weapons] very effectively."
Vance and the U.S. cohort are expected to meet in Pakistan’s capital with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and the speaker of the nation's parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Prior to the war, Araghchi was a hardline proponent of Iran's right to enrich uranium.
Trump told The New York Post he was concerned about dishonesty during the negotiations.
“You’re dealing against people that we don’t know whether or not they tell the truth,” he told the outlet. “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.’ So we’ll find out.”
Trump was more candid on his Truth Social page, where he insisted that the Iranians were only alive because he wants to negotiate.
“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short-term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” he said on Friday. “The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”
Vance had a less violent outlook on the upcoming negotiations, saying Friday that he is "looking forward to negotiation" and that he believes "it's going to be positive."
Even still, he warned that if the Iranians are "going to try to play us, then they're going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive."
Iran is still tolling ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a move that Trump called "dishonorable" in light of the ceasefire agreement.
"Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz," Trump said on Thursday. "There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait -- They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!"
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump wants the strait open “immediately, without limitation.”
The Independent has requested comment from the White House.
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