President Trump said Saturday he is reviewing a 14-point Iranian proposal to end the war that began Feb. 28, telling reporters at Palm Beach International Airport that he would study the document on Air Force One while warning that he could order fresh strikes against Tehran if it "misbehaves."
The public review marks the first time Trump has engaged in detail with the Iranian counteroffer that arrived through Pakistani intermediaries late Thursday, and it shifts the U.S.-Iran track from the closed-door drafting it has occupied since the April 8 ceasefire into open presidential deliberation. Trump rejected an earlier Iranian proposal this week, but conversations have continued and the three-week truce is holding.
What Tehran is asking
The 14-point plan, first reported by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency and Press TV and confirmed by NPR and Al Jazeera, responds to a nine-point U.S. framework. According to those outlets, Iran wants all issues resolved within 30 days rather than the two-month ceasefire Washington had proposed, plus guarantees against future military aggression, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iran's periphery, an end to the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports, the release of frozen Iranian assets, war reparations, the lifting of sanctions, an end to fighting in Lebanon and a new mechanism governing the Strait of Hormuz.
The earlier U.S. document, presented in late March, ran to 15 points and demanded the complete reopening of the strait and an end to Iran's nuclear program, NPR reported. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state broadcaster IRIB after delivering the new plan that "Now the ball is in the United States' court to choose the path of diplomacy or the continuation of a confrontational approach."
What Trump said
Speaking before boarding Air Force One bound for Doral, Florida, Trump told reporters he had been briefed on "the concept of the deal" but had not yet seen the text. "I'll let you know about it later," he said, adding that "they're going to give me the exact wording now."
Asked whether he could order renewed strikes, Trump replied: "If they misbehave, if they do something bad — but right now, we'll see. It's a possibility that could happen, certainly," according to Axios reporter Barak Ravid. The president told reporters Friday that "They want to make a deal, I'm not satisfied with it, so we'll see what happens."
Later Saturday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he would soon review the plan but "can't imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years," CBS News reported. Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that Trump appeared to have rejected the proposal "without reading it or being briefed on it."
Blockade and strait
The naval blockade Trump imposed April 13 is the immediate point of leverage and the immediate point of friction. U.S. Central Command said Saturday that 48 commercial ships have been told to turn back from Iranian ports, PBS NewsHour reported, and the U.S. on Friday warned shipping companies they could face sanctions for paying Iran to pass through the strait, including in "digital assets, offsets, informal swaps, or other in-kind payments."
Kenneth Katzman, a senior fellow at the Soufan Center, told Al Jazeera the nuclear gap has narrowed but the blockade has not. "The differences on the nuclear issues are actually … not that great a difference any more. It's still substantial, but can be narrowed. The issue is that Iran really mistrusts Trump and the United States and does not want to move, really, into full discussion until this blockade is lifted," Katzman said. About a fifth of the world's seaborne oil and natural gas typically passes through Hormuz.
On the team
The White House confirmed to CBS News that Nick Stewart, a former State Department official from the first Trump administration and a former lobbyist for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, has joined the negotiating team led by special envoy Steve Witkoff. Stewart was brought on by Jared Kushner, U.S. officials told CBS News, and traveled with Vice President JD Vance, Kushner and Witkoff to Islamabad in early April for a round of talks that failed.
The counterpoint
Republican congressional voices were not represented in today's wire reporting; the criticism of the Iranian proposal in the dossier comes from Trump himself. Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft told Al Jazeera that the economic cost of the blockade on Iranian ports has exceeded what the White House anticipated and that "Iran has been under all kinds of economic pressure and sanctions for 47 years" without capitulating. Trump countered Saturday that Iran was desperate for a settlement because it had been "decimated" by the war and the blockade.
The ceasefire that began April 8 has paused, but not ended, what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday is a $25 billion war. Iran has set a 30-day clock in its proposal; Trump has set no public deadline on his review.