President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he gave Iran an “ultimatum” as he considers whether to order a U.S. strike against the country, amid its ongoing conflict with Israel.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem began preparing for large-scale evacuations of Americans who want to leave Israel.
“I may do it, I may not do it,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked if he would order that strike in support of Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Iranian nuclear and military targets.
“I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Trump said. “I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate.”
Asked if he gave Iran an ultimatum, Trump said, “You could say so. Maybe you could call it the ultimate ultimatum.”
About an hour later, U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said evacuation flights and cruise-ship departures are being arranged for American citizens seeking to leave Israel.
A U.S. strike against Iran is one option among a range that Trump is weighing after meeting with his top national security advisors in the Situation Room on Tuesday afternoon.
Earlier that day, Trump had called for Iran’s surrender and threatened its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling him an “easy target.”
In his remarks Wednesday morning, Trump also claimed that Iran had reached out to the U.S., and had even offered to send a delegation to the White House for talks.
The Iranian mission to the United Nations quickly denied this, and rejected the prospect of accepting a peace plan in the midst of hostilities with Israel.
“No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House,” the mission said on its official X account. “The only thing more despicable than his lies is his cowardly threat to ‘take out’ Iran’s Supreme Leader.”
“Iran shall respond to any threat with a counter-threat, and to any action with reciprocal measures,” the mission added.
Earlier Wednesday, Khamenei threatened the U.S. with “irreparable damage” if Washington followed through with a military strike against nuclear facilities in the regional power.
“Any American military entry will undoubtedly be met with irreparable damage,” Khamenei said, according to NBC News reporting. He added that America’s potential involvement in Iran “will 100% backfire” and that “the damage they suffer will be far worse than anything Iran may face. If they enter militarily, they will face harm that they cannot recover from.”
CNBC has reached out to the White House for comment.
Iran and Israel have been trading missile fire since Friday, when the Jewish state launched what it called a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear program and other military sites.
The International Atomic Energy Agency on Wednesday said two nuclear centrifuge production facilities in Iran were hit.
Trump on Tuesday warned that the patience of the U.S. — a historically close ally and weapons provider of Israel — was “wearing thin.”
“We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform, stressing the White House does not want missiles “shot at civilians, or American soldiers” but nevertheless aims for Tehran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
Khamenei responded Wednesday, saying “the Iranian people are not a people who can be forced into surrender.”
Under Trump’s second administration, the White House has been attempting to broker a deal over Iran’s nuclear program, with talks so far yet to bear fruit.
Washington has previously insisted it was not directly involved in the hostilities, but Trump’s latest comments have stoked speculation over a change in strategy — and a potential direct U.S. military attack against Iranian sites.
“From the beginning, it was suspected that America was involved, and now, with their own officials’ words, this suspicion is growing stronger,” Khamenei said.
Tensions between the two historical Middle Eastern foes have been running high since the October 2023 attack on Israeli territory carried out by Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas. Israel has since accused Iran of offensives undertaken through its network of regional allies that also include Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi groups. Tehran denies involvement.
Amid ongoing fire exchanges, Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, on Wednesday said in a Google-translated social media update that “a tornado passes over Tehran” and “this is how dictatorships collapse.”
Earlier in the week, leaders of the world’s Group of Seven most advanced economies had labeled Iran a “principal source of regional instability and terror” in the Middle East and jointly called for “broader de-escalation of hostilities” regionally. Speaking on the sidelines of the G7 summit, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said that Israel is doing “the dirty work” for the Western world, according to Google-translated comments carried by German outlet ZDF.
Markets have been avidly watching developments in the conflict, which threatens to envelop the broader oil-rich Middle East region and has driven investors to safe-haven assets, such as gold.