Iran War Live Updates: Trump Again Extends Deadline for Iran to Open Strait or Face Strikes on Power Grid

Beirut/Tel Aviv3:49 a.m. March 27 Tehran5:19 a.m. March 27 Iran War Live Updates: Trump Again Extends Deadline for Iran to Open Strait or Face Strikes on Power Grid President Trump moved the deadline to reopen the major transit route for oil tankers from Friday to April 6. Stocks fell sharply and oil prices rose. - David Guttenfelder/The New York Times - Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times - Agence France-Presse — Getty Images - Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times - Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times - Oren Ben Hakoon/Reuters - Video obtained by Reuters - Hussein Malla/Associated Press - Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press President Trump on Thursday announced that he was once again postponing the deadline for Iran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz to shipping or face devastating strikes on its power plants. Citing what he claimed was progress in talks to end the war, Mr. Trump said he would now hold off for 10 more days before targeting the plants. It was the second time he had postponed his deadline. Iran, at least publicly, has denied that any negotiations are taking place, and has accused the Trump administration of simply trying to calm world markets. Stocks on Wall Street suffered their largest daily decline on Thursday since the start of the war, falling as oil prices rose sharply. But Mr. Trump claimed on social media that the additional time was being given “per Iranian Government request.” The deadline is now April 6, he said. “Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well,” he wrote. When he first announced the U.S. intention to strike the plants, last Saturday, he gave Iran 48 hours to open up the strait. On Monday, he extended it to Friday. The new extension came after Mr. Trump ratcheted up pressure on Iran to accept a U.S. proposal to end the war, warning that otherwise “we’ll just keep blowing them away.” He issued the threat at a cabinet meeting hours after Israel said it had killed a naval commander who had been leading Iran’s effort to close a vital oil shipping route. At the meeting, Mr. Trump and a top adviser offered differing assessments of Tehran’s openness to negotiations. Iran has publicly rejected the overtures, though privately it has signaled some willingness. “They’ll tell you, ‘We’re not negotiating,’” Mr. Trump said. “Of course, they’re negotiating. They’ve been obliterated.” Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for Mr. Trump, offered a more cautious interpretation. He said that he and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, were still trying to convince the Iranians “that this is the inflection point, with no good alternatives for them other than more death and destruction.” And Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated that European and Asian allies of the United States should be more involved. “Well, it’s in their interests to help,” Mr. Rubio said of allied countries just before flying to France for a meeting of top diplomats from the Group of 7 nations on Friday. “Very little of our energy comes through the Strait of Hormuz. It’s the world that has a great interest in that, so they should step up and deal with it.” Although Mr. Trump says that Iran is willing to negotiate because it is close to defeat, missile launches by Iran at Israel continued unabated on Thursday. Here’s what else we’re covering: Commander killed: Israel said on Thursday that the Iranian naval commander it had killed, Alireza Tangsiri, played a pivotal role in shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Iran did not immediately comment on the claim. Iran’s capital: Heavy explosions were heard in several parts of Tehran on Thursday evening, according to state media. Residents of the capital described unusually intense bombardment compared with those from recent nights. The reports came after Israeli officials said the military intended to step up its air campaign because of concerns the United States could soon bring the war to a halt. War authorization: A senior Republican senator who has harshly criticized the Trump administration for keeping Congress in the dark about combat operations in Iran has begun drafting legislation that would force lawmakers to vote for the first time on whether to authorize the war. The senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, is working with a group of senators on a formal authorization for the use of military force against Iran, but has yet to introduce the resolution, a spokesman confirmed on Thursday. Read more › Lebanon: More than one million people have been displaced in Lebanon amid Israel’s war on Hezbollah, and many have fled to the capital, Beirut. Over 100,000 people are now relying on shelters in schools and other public buildings, as Israel plans to expand its occupation of southern Lebanon. Read more › Death tolls: The Human Rights Activists News Agency has reported that more than 1,492 civilians have been killed in Iran. More than 1,110 people in Lebanon have been killed, the health ministry there said on Thursday. At least 16 people have been killed in Iranian attacks on Israel, officials said. And the American death toll stands at 13 service members. The Israeli military said it had completed a “wide-scale wave of strikes” targeting government infrastructure in Tehran early on Friday morning. Earlier, Press TV, an Iranian state news agency, said Iran had launched strikes at Israel. Israelis were warned to shelter in place and soon after were released. There were no casualties reported. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will not hold a news conference this week, the Pentagon said on Thursday. That means it will be Monday at the earliest until the two leaders take questions from reporters on the state of the Iran war — at least 11 days since their last news conference on March 19. Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary, said in an email that Hegseth had provided updates at several public events with President Trump this week. And Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, this week posted two short videotaped operational updates. But none of those events offered reporters an opportunity to question Hegseth or the admiral. An Israeli airstrike targeted the southern outskirts of Beirut, in an area known as a stronghold of Hezbollah, early on Friday morning in the Middle East. The strike came without prior warning. Hezbollah on Thursday had announced 94 operations targeting Israel and Israeli troops in Lebanon, the highest number on a given day in the war so far. The number of attacks by the Lebanese militant group has escalated significantly in recent days as Israel plans to expand its occupation of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah said it had destroyed 50 Israeli tanks in the last two days. President Trump on Thursday again delayed a deadline for Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, saying he would give Tehran 10 more days, until the new deadline of April 6 at 8 p.m., before potentially ordering strikes on Iran’s power plants. The extension, which is the second in less than a week, came as Mr. Trump claimed the United States was making progress in talks to end the war, though Iran has publicly denied negotiations were underway and continued missile attacks across the region. Here is what else happened: Iran: Explosions shook Tehran on Thursday evening, with residents describing intense bombardment. Mr. Trump said that Iran was negotiating despite its public denials, while Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy, said there were “strong signs” the war would end because Iran was “looking for an off-ramp.” Pakistan confirmed it had relayed a 15-point U.S. peace proposal to Iranian officials. Israel: Israel said it had killed Alireza Tangsiri, an Iranian naval commander who played a pivotal role in shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Iran did not immediately comment on the claim. The Israeli military reported detecting repeated waves of attacks since midnight as Iran launched missiles throughout the day. At least seven people were injured in central Israel, and rescue teams responded to an impact site in the city of Kafr Qassem. The Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid issued stern criticism of the country’s military strategy, saying it was facing a staff shortage and fighting on too many fronts. Lebanon: Israel deepened its campaign against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon, saying it had expanded its ground operation in the south of the country and deployed a third division there. An Israeli soldier was killed in southern Lebanon, and Lebanese health officials said more than 1,110 people had been killed in the country since the conflict escalated, including 121 children. Persian Gulf: Iran’s attacks on Gulf States widened the war’s reach. The United Arab Emirates said it intercepted 15 ballistic missiles and 11 drones on Thursday, but debris from one interception killed two people in Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted at least 36 drones aimed at its Eastern Province, while Kuwait and Bahrain reported attacks or fallout. Kuwait also said it had uncovered a terrorist plot linked to Hezbollah. Strait of Hormuz: The waterway remained a central economic flashpoint. Mr. Trump said Iran had allowed 10 boats through as a gesture during the talks, but he had warned that if Tehran did not fully reopen the route, the United States could escalate further. NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said European countries needed time to organize themselves to secure the strait because they had not been warned in advance about the war. United States: Mr. Trump and his advisers sent mixed signals about whether diplomacy was gaining traction. He said Iran was negotiating because it had been “obliterated,” while Mr. Witkoff said the United States was still trying to convince Tehran that it had no good alternative to a deal. Markets: Stocks on Wall Street posted their steepest one-day drop at close since the start of the war. The S&P 500 fell 1.7 percent, putting it on track for its fifth straight week of losses, which is its longest losing streak in four years. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that the war could push U.S. inflation above 4 percent this year. Japan began releasing oil from its national reserves to help shield consumers from the shock of energy prices, and German lawmakers passed legislation to prevent gas station owners from raising prices more than once a day. On Thursday, minutes after the stock market ended one of its worst days this year, President Trump announced that he had extended his deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on its power plants. The change, according to Mr. Trump, reflected that recent talks with the Iranians had been “going very well.” But his timing could not be ignored, given the president’s penchant for turning to the bully pulpit whenever his policies cause markets to get, as he says, “a little bit yippy.” For investors, Thursday marked a brutal session of trading with stocks suffering their largest daily decline since the war with Iran began about four weeks ago. Bond prices slipped and the S&P 500 fell, while the price of Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, surged to just above $108 per barrel. With risks to the U.S. economy mounting by the day, Mr. Trump has largely dismissed those disruptions as temporary and necessary in pursuit of security and stability in the Middle East. Earlier Thursday, the president even admitted at a cabinet meeting that the fallout “hasn’t been nearly as severe” as he first anticipated. “Frankly, I thought the oil prices would go up more and I thought the stock market would go down more,” Mr. Trump said at one point. But the president nonetheless has been sensitive to adverse movements in financial markets throughout his second term. Sometimes explicitly, he has responded with public comments and social media posts that appear designed to give stocks and bonds a jolt. When his original slate of punishing tariffs triggered a global sell-off last year, for example, Mr. Trump tried to calm markets with an all-caps reassurance on Truth Social. “BE COOL,” he wrote at the time. “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!” Markets later soared. The same dynamic has surfaced around the U.S. war with Iran, as financial markets and oil prices whipsaw in tandem with the president’s threats and his predictions as to when the conflict may end. Last weekend, the president threatened to bomb Iranian energy facilities, in a move that could have further constrained the supply of oil, causing prices globally to swell. That led to a panic among investors, until Mr. Trump backed down on Monday, causing oil prices to fall and stocks to rise. He then set a new Friday deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. As the week progressed, Mr. Trump claimed that the Iranians were open to a deal — while officials in Tehran appeared to indicate that they were far from a resolution in hostilities. Consequently, trading remained volatile, and appeared to ebb and flow around the conflicting statements about the war. By Thursday, with his original deadline approaching, Mr. Trump said on social media that he was “pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time.” Shortly after, by Thursday evening, stock futures were up slightly. Government bond yields, which underpin interest rates on consumer and corporate debt and trade later in the day than stocks, fell sharply after Trump’s announcement, only to keep rising afterward. Joe Rennison contributed reporting. A senior Republican senator who has harshly criticized the Trump administration for keeping Congress in the dark on combat operations in Iran has begun drafting legislation that would force lawmakers to vote for the first time on whether to authorize the war. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is working with a group of senators on a formal authorization for the use of military force against Iran, but has yet to introduce the resolution, a spokesman confirmed on Thursday. Such a measure would have to receive a swift vote in both chambers of Congress and would be all but certain to generate a politically charged debate just months before the midterm elections on a war that polls show is unpopular. Ms. Murkowski described the move on Thursday as an act of desperation to try to put some parameters around the operation as the Trump administration refuses to provide answers to Congress about its objectives, cost and timeline, and has boxed lawmakers out of its decision-making on the conflict. The development, reported earlier by Bloomberg Government, comes as Republicans in Congress have grown increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration’s handling of the war nearly a month into the conflict. Ms. Murkowski was one of the first Republicans to criticize the administration for not providing more details about the possible need for ground troops and the total cost or expected timeline of the war. “We should have a better handle on where we’re going with this,” she said in a recent interview. “This president came into office saying he was going to be the peace president,” Ms. Murkowski added. “How many times has he said, ‘We don’t like these long wars, these never-ending wars?’ People are asking me, ‘Is that what we’re moving into?’ And I can’t honestly tell them the answer, because I don’t know that answer.” It is unclear when Ms. Murkowski might introduce the measure. And its fate would be highly uncertain. Even some Republicans who have staunchly supported the offensive against Iran may be reluctant to vote in favor of going to war, something Congress has not done since 2002 when it authorized the use of military force against Iraq. Under the 1973 War Powers Act, such authorizations must be considered under expedited procedures and voted on within days of being filed. Congress is scheduled to depart for a two-week recess beginning on Friday, so any vote would likely come after that. Should the Senate act, the House would be required to schedule a vote on the authorization soon afterward. Both chambers would be legally required to vote on such an authorization well before the 60-day mark of the conflict in Iran. A moderate, Ms. Murkowski was the first Republican senator to call for senior members of the president’s cabinet to testify under oath on the war, even as the majority of her colleagues echoed the rationale the administration offered for the conflict and said they did not see a need for information to be shared outside classified briefings. She voted three times in opposition to Democrat-led resolutions that would have forced Mr. Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress voted to authorize the war. But she voted in support of a similar resolution earlier in the year that aimed to curb the president’s military moves against Venezuela. Since the start of the war, Republicans have been nearly united in voting to block repeated Democratic efforts to curb Mr. Trump’s authority to carry out the campaign in Iran, even as some have begun to voice unease about how the conflict began and the administration’s shifting objectives. Those votes, however, have largely been aimed at preventing limits on the president rather than explicitly endorsing the war. An authorization for the use of military force would pose a far more direct question, forcing lawmakers to go on record affirming the campaign and granting the president explicit permission to continue it. “I’m glad to see a Republican senator taking this war seriously and understanding the constitutional obligation for them to come to Congress,” Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, said on Thursday. Senate Republicans last week blocked his resolution to terminate the war until Mr. Trump won authorization for it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said European and Asian allies of the United States should help with securing the Strait of Hormuz for the shipping of global oil and gas supplies as President Trump extended a deadline he had given to Iran to fully reopen it. “Well, it’s in their interests to help,” Mr. Rubio said of allied countries on Thursday just before flying to France for a meeting of top diplomats from the Group of 7 nations. “Very little of our energy comes through the Strait of Hormuz. It’s the world that has a great interest in that, so they should step up and deal with it.” He added that it was notable that Iran recently has allowed a few tankers to pass through the strait, which the Iranian military has effectively closed to most Western-affiliated ships since the start of the war on Feb. 28. With around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies passing through the strait, the chokehold on global shipping has led to a surge in global oil and gas prices. Mr. Trump said earlier Thursday that Iran had allowed eight ships to pass through the strait as a “gift,” or gesture of good faith ahead of any negotiations. Earlier this week, he gave Iran a deadline of Friday to allow full passage of ships through the waterway, but he said on Thursday afternoon that he would extend the deadline for 10 days, until April 6 at 8 p.m. “There’s a growing amount of energy that’s flowing pretty great,” Mr. Rubio told reporters. “Not as much as could be flowing, but some of it has picked up.” Mr. Rubio, who is also the White House national security adviser, said that intermediary nations were passing messages between the United States and Iran, and “progress has been made” on resolving the war. When the United States sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war, it was Pakistan that delivered the proposal, said two officials briefed on the diplomacy. Asked whether negotiators for the warring parties would meet in person soon, Mr. Rubio said: “We’ll see. We’ll see how it turns out. I don’t want to prejudge it. I don’t want to predict.” Mr. Rubio said the president had good reason to make remarks earlier that expressed skepticism of NATO allies. “Right now, he’s just making the observation that I think there was a couple of leaders in Europe who said that this was not Europe’s war,” Mr. Rubio said, referencing the earlier complaints made by the president. “Well, Ukraine is not America’s war, and yet we’ve contributed more to that fight than any other country in the world. So it’ll be something to examine. The president will have to take into account down the road.” Mr. Trump has beseeched leaders in Europe and Asia to send warships to help ward off Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, but the leaders have ignored him or said no. European allies have grown deeply suspicious of Mr. Trump, following rounds of tariff announcements, Mr. Trump’s threats to seize Greenland and his efforts to form a partnership with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. European and Asian officials also point out that Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel started the war without consulting with other leaders. China is among the Asian nations that Mr. Trump has called on for help, but Iran is letting ships with oil bound for China pass through the strait. And China officials assess that America getting mired in another war in the Middle East is of strategic benefit for their nation, even if the conflict causes gyrations in energy markets. When asked about his assessment of Russia’s support for Iran in the war, Mr. Rubio said, “I think Russia’s primarily concentrating on the war they have going on right now,” referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Beyond that, I don’t have anything to add right now.” U.S. officials say Russia has provided intelligence to Iran during the war, including satellite imagery showing the locations of American warships and military personnel. Sitting in a dimly lit room in a school turned shelter in Beirut, Zouheir Chahine reflected on how his life had changed. Mr. Chahine, 50, arrived in Lebanon’s capital a week ago after leaving his home in the southern part of the country. He is among more than one million people who have been displaced in Lebanon in the more than three weeks since the start of Israel’s war with Hezbollah. Over 100,000 people, including Mr. Chahine, have been forced to rely on temporary shelters set up in schools and other public buildings; others are staying with relatives or sleeping in cars and on street sidewalks. “I didn’t want to leave, but as the situation escalated, getting food became a challenge,” Mr. Chahine said. Elsewhere in the school, Salam Mansour, 30, washed a pile of clothes with several other women. She, her husband and their three children fled their home just north of the Litani River in southern Lebanon after missiles struck their town. On Wednesday, the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, said that the Israeli military would expand its occupation of southern Lebanon and retain control of the land south of the Litani River. Ms. Mansour remained defiant. “Even if it means sitting on rocks, we will return,” she said. The influx of internally displaced people into Beirut has turned the capital into a city of dizzying contrasts. Along the promenade at the Mediterranean Sea, makeshift tent communities of the displaced sit not far from where the wealthy live in upscale apartments. Some in the city have turned their focus to preparing meals for the displaced. One of them is Martin Sarkis, who spends most of his day working at a food distribution site. “I’m not here only for the work. I’m here because I know what I do helps someone in need,” he said. “It’s frustrating to go through this war again, but we do what we have to do.” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine announced on Thursday in a social media post that he had arrived in Saudi Arabia. “Important meetings are scheduled,” he said, adding, “we appreciate the support and support those who are ready to work with us to ensure security.” President Trump’s war with Iran is testing the limits of his unorthodox diplomatic style as he grasps for a deal to end the conflict shaking the Middle East and the global economy. As the war stretches longer than Mr. Trump seems to have anticipated, he appears to be casting about for a diplomatic offramp even as he threatens to escalate the conflict. In a social media post on Thursday, Mr. Trump seemed confounded by the challenge, calling Iranian officials “very different and ‘strange’” and claiming that they were “begging” for a deal while insisting that they “better get serious soon.” It is unclear who in the Trump administration may be in charge of talking with a battered Tehran’s surviving leadership. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would join his special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner in any negotiations. “They’re doing it, along with Marco, JD, we have a number of people doing it,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Vance is a past opponent of U.S. intervention in the Middle East generally and Iran in particular. Mr. Rubio, by contrast, is an Iran hawk who has publicly defended Mr. Trump’s decision to attack the country. That jumble of emissaries — a friend, a family member, a dove and a hawk — reflects Mr. Trump’s improvisational approach to foreign dealings and his disdain for career diplomats and their often cumbersome protocols. The picture is further muddied by Mr. Trump’s stream-of-consciousness commentary on social media and before the TV cameras during which he declares, revises and sometimes reverses his threats and demands. The situation is testing the bravado many Trump officials expressed about their early foreign policy initiatives. “Turns out a lot of diplomacy boils down to a simple skill: don’t be an idiot,” Mr. Vance posted on social media last March, in praise of Mr. Witkoff. Iran has publicly rejected a 15-point cease-fire proposal circulated by the United States but is privately considering meeting with unspecified U.S. negotiators in Pakistan in the coming days. Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush, rated Mr. Trump’s Iran diplomacy a failure, in part because the president seems unsure of his own goals. “Trump says he wants to de-escalate, but does he even know what that means?” Mr. Kurtzer added that the 15 demands Mr. Trump has submitted to Tehran “are nonstarters, because they would require Iran essentially to give up on everything.” Mr. Kurtzer also blamed Mr. Trump for sidelining career diplomats, cutting key policymaking jobs and largely placing his Middle East diplomacy into the hands of Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner, who have backgrounds in real estate. That has left Mr. Trump without skilled teams of experts to help guide him out of the current crisis, Mr. Kurtzer said. “If you’ve hollowed out the State Department and substantially reduced the size of the National Security Council and fired some of your top generals, and if so much of what you’re doing is about political loyalty, then maybe there isn’t that reservoir of expertise to draw on,” he said. Many foreign diplomats share the concern that America’s diplomatic machine is malfunctioning. “America has lost control of its own foreign policy,” the foreign minister of Oman, Badr Albusaidi, wrote in The Economist magazine last week. Mr. Albusaidi suggested that Mr. Trump could not solve the problem on his own. “The question for friends of America is simple,” he said. “What can we do to extricate the superpower from this unwanted entanglement?” In a reflection of that sentiment, several nations including Oman, Egypt and Pakistan have sought to mediate new talks between Washington and Tehran. Mr. Albusaidi is one of many who have been questioning whether Mr. Trump missed an opportunity to avoid war when he sent Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner for last-ditch negotiations with Iran over its nuclear and missile programs. Critics charge that Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner were out of their depth and too quick to conclude that Tehran was not open to a deal. During an appearance on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart on Monday, Jake Sullivan, who spent four years as President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s national security adviser, said Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner had bungled a meeting in late February with Iranian officials in Geneva that Mr. Trump had cast as a last chance to avoid war. “Just a few days before we started bombing Iran, the Iranians put a proposal on the table in Geneva that went a long way towards resolving the nuclear issue,” Mr. Sullivan said. “And my understanding is that our side, our negotiators simply didn’t understand what they were being offered, and they ignored it, and decided to go ahead and strike.” Mr. Sullivan attributed that understanding to “a mismatch between that and what the mediators, Omani mediators, said was actually on the table.” Trump officials strongly dispute that, saying Tehran refused to budge on basic U.S. demands, including that Iran agree to zero uranium enrichment on its soil. But Mr. Sullivan is hardly alone in raising concerns about Mr. Trump’s diplomatic acumen. In an interview last week with PBS’s “Firing Line,” Jim Mattis, who served as defense secretary for much of Mr. Trump’s first term, said the president had failed to use America’s nonmilitary power wisely. “‘Targetry’ does not take the place of strategy,” Mr. Mattis said. “Right now, whether or not we have a strategy to actually use diplomacy, economics,” and the help of European allies whom Mr. Trump has alienated, “is still to be proven,” he added. One particular quirk of Mr. Trump’s diplomatic approach is the minimalist role of his State Department and its leader, Mr. Rubio. Since taking on a second job last year as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, a demanding White House staff position, Mr. Rubio has visited foreign capitals far less often than his recent State Department predecessors. He has not been to the Middle East since a brief October stop in Israel. (Mr. Rubio canceled a planned return trip there this month when war broke out.) His last foreign trip was a one-day visit to St. Kitts and Nevis for a Caribbean security conference in late February. Mr. Rubio has held numerous phone calls with officials in the Middle East and elsewhere since the war in Iran began, according to the State Department. But during past Middle East crises, U.S. secretaries of state have typically raced across the region to build personal trust and glean insights in ways that veteran diplomats say requires in-person interaction. Mr. Rubio typically visits the State Department “almost every day,” he told Politico in June, but added that he spends more time at the White House during times of conflict. He suggested in December that he had less need for travel because “we have a lot of leaders constantly coming here” to visit Mr. Trump at the White House. Mr. Rubio plans to attend a Friday gathering of Group of 7 foreign ministers in France, in what the State Department said would be a one-day trip. He has also said he is unbothered by the heavy diplomatic responsibilities Mr. Trump has assigned to Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner, saying that they check in with him regularly. But the war with Iran reveals the risk in what Aaron David Miller, who served as a Middle East negotiator under several presidents of both parties, calls Mr. Trump’s “huge break with convention and common sense.” “That the secretary of state is playing a subordinate role and not managing the administration’s most serious foreign policy crisis attests to how dysfunctional the decision-making process is,” he added. “Because there’s no structure, it also allows Iran to try to pick and choose which U.S. officials they want to talk to.” A Trump administration briefing on the talks, held for reporters soon after the war began, offered some fodder for those who question Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner’s role in crisis. The two men were joined in Geneva by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Argentine diplomat Rafael Grossi, but no American technical experts. During the briefing, a senior Trump administration official said it was “surprising” that Iran had insisted in Geneva that it enjoyed an inalienable national right to enrich uranium that it would never surrender — even though Iran has declared that position for decades. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also repeatedly misstated the abbreviation for Mr. Grossi’s agency, which has long played a crucial monitoring role within Iran, as the “I.E.A.E.” or “I.E.A.” But the official nonetheless expressed confidence in his own expertise. Referring to a document presented by the Iranian negotiators, the official said: “I went through it. I know enough about nuclear that I was able to absorb.” “It all smelled fishy,” the official concluded. That view was relayed to Mr. Trump, who launched his attack the next night. Stocks on Wall Street on Thursday suffered their largest daily decline since the start of the war with Iran, falling as oil prices rose sharply after President Trump raised the pressure on Iran to accept terms to end the fighting. The S&P 500 fell 1.7 percent, putting the index on course for its fifth straight week of losses for the first time in four years. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose roughly 5.7 percent, to $108.01 a barrel, its highest this week. President Trump just announced that he is extending the deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on its power plants by 10 days. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the pause of was “per Iranian Government request,” and that it would end on Monday, April 6, at 8 p.m. Eastern time. “Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well,” he wrote. Iran considers Spain a country “committed to international law” and will consider “any request” it makes for its ships to sail through the Strait of Hormuz, an X account that appeared to belong to Iran’s embassy in Spain said late Thursday. Earlier this week, Iran declared that non-hostile vessels could safely pass through the strait, which Tehran has essentially blocked with the threat of attack, driving up energy prices around the globe. The war in Iran is likely to spur Europe to more rapidly adopt renewable energy, said Teresa Ribera, the E.U.’s top official in charge of the clean energy transition, on Thursday. She was at an event at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. Ribera said recent oil shocks and shortages had exposed fossil fuels as “intermittent,” and unreliable — a criticism often lobbed against wind and solar energy. President Vladimir Putin warned Russian business leaders in a speech to remain prudent, despite sky-high oil prices benefiting Russia, saying the markets could also swing in the other direction. The Russian leader said the Iran war may ultimately have the same impact as the coronavirus pandemic, which caused development to slow dramatically across the world. In a closed session, Putin told business leaders that he hoped the war in Iran would end within three to four weeks, so Russia’s Finance Ministry and businesses should not count on the current windfall lasting long, according to Alexander Shokhin, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, who spoke to reporters after the event. Israel’s political opposition has largely aligned with the government on the war effort against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But on Thursday, the parliamentary opposition leader, Yair Lapid, issued a stark warning about the military’s ability to carry out its missions in light of a severe manpower shortage. “The government has sent the military to fight a multi-front war without a strategy, without the means, and with too few soldiers,” Lapid said in a televised address. He said that Israel’s military chief of staff had warned ministers on Wednesday that the military was struggling to mobilize reservists after more than two years of war, and that active-duty soldiers were facing “total collapse.” The remarks, attributed to Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, were not made publicly. The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Heavy explosions were heard in several parts of Tehran on Thursday evening, according to Iranian state media. Residents described unusually intense bombardment compared with recent nights. It was not immediately clear who was carrying out the strikes, but the reports came after Israeli officials said the military intended to step up its air campaign because of concerns the United States could soon bring the war to a halt if it reaches an agreement with Iran. Washington’s diplomatic overtures still had not born fruit on Thursday. At least 15 ballistic missiles and 11 drones were launched from Iran at the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, the country’s defense ministry said in a social media post. All told, the small country on the Persian Gulf has had to had deal with 327 missiles and 1,826 drones since the air war with Iran started. Two military members and nine civilians have been killed, the ministry said. The Israeli military has “expanded” the ground operation in southern Lebanon “one step further,” Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo, the commander of the Northern Command, told troops on Thursday, according to a statement from the military. He said Israeli troops had so far killed more than 750 people he called “terrorists” and “destroyed infrastructure all across Lebanon.” Earlier in the day, the military said that it had deployed a third division to southern Lebanon, while troops from a fourth division had also carried out ground operations there. Pakistan’s expanding efforts to broker peace between the U.S. and Iran come after it reached an unorthodox — and potentially lucrative — real-estate deal involving a shuttered hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The deal, a potential partnership between the U.S. and Pakistani governments, was disclosed last month by President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, a former developer now assigned to negotiate peace around the world. Pakistan’s leaders recently relayed to Iran a 15-point U.S. plan to end the war, and they have offered to host talks between the two sides. A close adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia struck an optimistic note on the war’s effect on Persian Gulf countries at an event in Miami hosted by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. The challenges the region is facing are showing that it is resilient, said Mohammed Al Asheikh, a Saudi minister of state. “We will come out of this much better, much stronger.” Israel’s war with Hezbollah has shown little sign of abating. More than 1,100 people have now been killed in the country since Israel’s conflict with the Iran-backed group erupted earlier this month, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. At least 121 children are among the dead, the ministry said. Trump said he didn’t yet know whether he would extend a deadline he gave to Iran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz by Friday or the United States would “obliterate” power stations there. Trump said it would depend on what his negotiators, Witkoff and Kushner, reported. “If it’s not going along, maybe not,” he said, adding that they “have a lot of time.” He added that a day “in Trump time” was “an eternity.” President Trump said the “surprise” he’s been referring to regarding Iran was that the Iranians said they would let eight oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz as a show of sincerity ahead of talks. He said they were Pakistan-flagged boats. And two additional boats were let through, he added, so 10 boats passed. Trump, asked about reports that the U.S. was considering a plan to divert munitions from Ukraine to the Middle East, did not answer definitively but said that “we do that all the time.” He said that the United States was still hoping to get the war in Ukraine “solved,” but noted that it was “thousands of miles away” and didn’t affect the United States. He then expressed his ire at NATO allies, indicating that he could take the same posture they have in hesitating to get involved in his war against Iran. “That’s why, when I heard the head of Germany say ‘this is not our war,’ about Iran, I said, ‘Well, Ukraine’s not our war,’” he said. President Trump said he was open to trying to suspend the federal gas tax in a bid to bring down sky-high costs at the pump stemming from the war with Iran. He said he “thought about it, I guess,” during the cabinet meeting, later adding it’s “something we have in our pocket if we think it’s necessary.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that he was confident that oil shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would start to increase and that the oil market was currently “well supplied.” Bessent predicted that after the war concludes, the world will have lower energy prices and less inflation because there will be “absolute security.” The head of NATO said on Thursday that European countries needed time to “come together” to make sure the Strait of Hormuz is open for all, even as many of those nations have criticized the war in Iran as unlawful and unwarranted. Briefing journalists at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Secretary General Mark Rutte noted that the alliance had long held that Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs posed a threat not just to the Middle East but to Europe. He cited recent strikes against Turkey and a joint U.S.-British military base in the Indian Ocean as evidence of Iran’s threat to the trans-Atlantic alliance. “What the United States is doing now is degrading that capability,” Mr. Rutte said of the American military action, which it has taken alongside Israel, against Iran. “And yes, I applaud it.” But he also said he had told President Trump that European leaders could not be expected to quickly assist in the Persian Gulf because they were not given advance notice of the Feb. 28 attack on Iran. Mr. Trump has criticized Europe for not doing more to help protect commercial ships from Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. “We are very disappointed with NATO because NATO has done absolutely nothing,” he said later on Thursday, during a cabinet meeting in Washington. Mr. Rutte said his response to such criticism was that “Europe needed time because the United States, for good reasons, was not able to inform allies of what was going to happen.” He added, “It means that it takes some time for Europe to come together, and that’s happening now.” He said that more than 30 countries around the world, most of them NATO members, were now planning how “to make sure that the Strait of Hormuz, the sea lanes, are open.” Mr. Rutte conceded that it was not clear when that might happen, given that most allies have refused to get involved in the strait on Iran’s southern border until a cease-fire is announced. “Indeed, that begs the question, given the fact that the war is ongoing: What does it mean in terms of the ‘what’ question, the ‘when’ question and the ‘where’ question,” Mr. Rutte said. He said the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, was leading the multinational effort “to make sure that those questions will be answered.” Mr. Rutte also reiterated his support for Mr. Trump. “The United States, under this president, is doing stuff which is quite crucial for the alliance,” he said. Critics of Mr. Rutte in Europe say that by supporting the war, he has gone beyond his remit as secretary general of the alliance to become a cheerleader for an unpopular American president and an unpopular conflict. Two people were killed and three others were wounded in Abu Dhabi on Thursday when shrapnel from an intercepted missile rained down on a road on the city’s outskirts, officials in the United Arab Emirates said. The Emirati authorities did not release the names of the two people who were killed but said that they were a Pakistani man and an Indian man. Their deaths underscored the rising civilian toll from the missiles and drones Iran has launched into several Arab countries since the United States and Israel began attacking Iran on Feb. 28. The United Arab Emirates intercepted 15 ballistic missiles and 11 drones fired by Iran on Thursday, according to the country’s defense ministry. Other countries in the Persian Gulf also said they had been attacked on Thursday, but none of them reported casualties. Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted at least 36 drones aimed at its oil-rich Eastern Province, a day after downing 34 drones and a ballistic missile. Kuwait said its air defenses brought down multiple drones, while civil defense teams in Bahrain extinguished a fire in the northern city of Muharraq that it said was caused by an airstrike. In a joint statement issued late on Wednesday, six Arab nations condemned “blatant Iranian attacks” and strikes carried out by Iran-backed militias in Iraq. “While we value our fraternal relations with the Republic of Iraq, we call on the Iraqi government to take the necessary measures to immediately halt the attacks launched by factions, militias, and armed groups from Iraqi territory toward neighboring countries,” the statement read. The authorities in Kuwait also said on Wednesday that they had foiled a terror plot involving 10 of its citizens. The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry accused them of being linked to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, and said they “were planning to assassinate state figures and leaders and recruit individuals to carry out these missions.” Five of the 10 were arrested, but the other five, who were not in Kuwait, remained at large, the ministry said. The war in Iran will lead to a surge in inflation this year, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz pushes up prices for oil, gas and other commodities, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Thursday. The inflation rate in the United States will average 4.2 percent this year, more than one percentage point higher than the group’s previous forecast, made late last year, the Paris-based organization said. Across the Group of 20 nations, inflation is forecast to average 4 percent this year, 1.2 percentage points higher than previously expected. The global economy is projected to grow by 2.9 percent this year, an unchanged forecast, supported by spending on artificial intelligence. “The resilience of the global economy is now being tested,” the O.E.C.D. said in a report. There is a “significant” risk to its projections if there are persistent disruptions to exports from the Middle East. For the past month, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway off the southern coast of Iran, has plummeted because of attacks on ships. That, along with attacks on energy infrastructure across the Persian Gulf region, has led to a sharp reduction in the supply of energy, as well as other goods such as fertilizers. That will push up the costs of food and other goods. “Higher energy and fertilizer prices and the unpredictable nature of the evolving conflict in the Middle East will add to inflation and weigh on demand,” the O.E.C.D. said. In the United States, growth momentum from the beginning of this year is expected to be offset by a slowdown in consumer spending. At the same time, the impact of higher energy prices will outweigh the effect from lower tariff rates on imports. The jump in inflation narrows the chances that the Federal Reserve will be able to cut interest rates this year. Among the G20 countries, Britain is forecast to suffer the biggest hit to growth, in addition to a large increase in inflation. The O.E.C.D. said that central bankers needed to remain vigilant for signs that the energy shock could lead to a longer-term increase in inflation, and that lawmakers should respond to higher prices with “temporary and well-targeted measures” because of pressure on government budgets.