Trump says Iran will 'pay the price' for delaying talks

Magan Crane, Patrick Sykes and Omar Tamo, Bloomberg News on Jun 10, 2026

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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran would “pay the price” for delaying negotiations for an interim peace deal, after renewed attacks overnight put further strain on a fragile two-month truce.

“They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price,” Trump wrote Wednesday on his social-media platform.

Oil prices jumped after Trump’s comments, as the path to a deal allowing for the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz is further clouded. Brent crude, the global benchmark, is trading above $92 a barrel after paring back part of the immediate move. U.S. equity futures moved lower and yields rose.

Interspersed with threats to resume strikes, Trump has repeatedly said a deal with Iran is within reach. Even with tensions escalating since last week, he had signaled he wants to contain hostilities and avoid a return to all-out war.

Talks with Iran are still ongoing and the U.S. will continue to exert pressure on Iran to reach a deal, a Fox News reporter said on a social media post, citing a senior White House official. The semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency reported that a Qatari delegation arrived in Tehran on Wednesday to discuss the diplomatic process to end the war.

The comments from Washington came after the two sides once again exchanged strikes, underscoring how high tensions are running and the risks that intermittent indirect talks between Iran and the U.S. may be derailed. The overnight clashes followed a direct confrontation between Iran and Israel earlier this week, but halted after Trump called on both sides to stop.

Trump said he retaliated against the Islamic Republic for shooting down a U.S. Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran didn’t confirm shooting down the aircraft and said it was reconsidering whether to persist with negotiations in light of the U.S. attacks.

“The diplomatic process doesn’t happen in a vacuum and to advance any diplomatic process you need a minimum space to be able to move forward,” Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, was cited by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency as saying. “Wherever necessary, our armed forces will respond to the enemy with authority.”

The U.S. military said it had completed an operation that saw fighter jets strike Iranian air defenses, ground control stations and radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched missiles on four American targets, including shelters housing F-35 fighter jets and a command center for the U.S. military at Al-Azraq Air Base in Jordan, state-run IRIB News said on Wednesday.

Iran also said it fired drones at the main U.S. naval base in the Middle East, located in Bahrain, and struck Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait. Kuwait’s defense ministry said it had intercepted projectiles early Wednesday, while Jordan said it had intercepted five Iranian missiles.

Tehran said it had exercised its “inherent right to legitimate self defense” and warned regional states not to allow the U.S. and Israel to use their territory as a staging post for attacks on the Islamic Republic.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in any of the attacks.

“This is how both sides are trying to shape the ceasefire, and such bouts of fighting are a function of protracted war,” Bloomberg Economics’ Dina Esfandiary, Becca Wasser and Ziad Daoud said. “The truce isn’t dead, but this is the new normal: a ceasefire that’s constantly being tested.”

Key hurdles in the negotiations include Tehran’s demand that Washington unfreezes more than $10 billion of frozen funds held in foreign countries. It’s also unclear whether Iran will agree to diluting its stocks of highly enriched uranium or sending them to another country such as China.

Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Hezbollah, is another sticking point. Iran fired missiles at Israel days ago after the Jewish state targeted the Iran-backed militia and infrastructure in Beirut, the Lebanese capital. Israel retaliated despite Trump urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to.

On Monday, Iran and Israel agreed to stop attacking each other. Tehran reported that some military personnel were killed in Israel’s attacks, while Israel intercepted incoming missiles.

Iran and the U.S. have been negotiating mainly via Pakistan and states such as Qatar. Pakistani-led intermediaries were continuing discussions with both sides this week, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the subject.

—With assistance from Brendan Fagan.

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