Trump Says He Might Visit Pakistan if Iran Deal Is Signed There

Donald Trump turned a fragile negotiation into a possible campaign-style stop, saying he might travel to Pakistan if a deal to end the war in Iran were signed in Islamabad. Speaking on the White House lawn as he left for Nevada and Arizona, Trump said the United States and Iran were “very close” to a deal, that Iran had agreed to “almost everything,” and that talks could resume “over the weekend.” He added that if a deal was signed in Pakistan, “I might go,” while praising the country as “been great” and “so good.”

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said Washington and Tehran were still in touch through Pakistan to arrange a second round of talks, but no date had been set. That made Islamabad less a ceremonial host than an active intermediary, with Pakistani officials stressing confidentiality and leaving the makeup of any delegation to the parties involved. The diplomacy has already required an overnight push to keep it alive when it was close to collapse, and Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, traveled to Tehran on April 16 to help move the process forward.

The timing is tight. A two-week ceasefire is under pressure to hold until around April 22, and the talks have been burdened by major disputes that remain unresolved, especially over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Senior U.S. and Iranian figures were in Islamabad on April 11 for negotiations after the truce was reached, but the ceasefire has not yet translated into a durable agreement. Even as Trump described the sides as near a breakthrough, the core issues around nuclear limits, sanctions, Lebanon and Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile were still unsettled.

That gap between spectacle and substance is what gives Trump’s remark its force. A presidential trip to Pakistan would signal that the venue matters as much as the deal, and that Islamabad has become a central stage in the effort to avert another round of fighting. But it would also underline how much of the diplomacy remains contingent, with Pakistan trying to preserve a ceasefire, Washington pressing for an agreement, and Tehran still holding back on the hardest concessions. For now, the most visible progress is political theater built around a negotiation that is not finished yet.