Donald Trump’s decision on whether to order airstrikes against Iran will depend partly on the judgment of his special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its nuclear capacity, according to people familiar with the matter.
The president has not made a final decision on any strikes. The administration is preparing for Iran to send its latest proposal this week, before what officials have described as a last-ditch round of negotiations, led by Witkoff and Kushner, scheduled for Thursday in Geneva.
Trump has told advisers he is considering limited strikes to put pressure on Iran and, failing that, a far larger attack to force regime change. Iran has vowed to retaliate as hard as possible against any US attack, and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said last week that he had the ability to sink a US warship.
Meanwhile, Trump’s new tariffs have come into force globally at 10%, though he had threatened a higher rate of 15% over the weekend. After the president suffered a defeat at the hands of the supreme court on Friday, which declared his sweeping “liberation day” tariffs imposed last year illegal, he angrily reacted by announcing a 10% global tariff. It is being imposed on imports for 150 days.
