U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were set to travel to Islamabad on Saturday before the president called it off
By Benoit Faucon, Laurence Norman and Natalie Andrews
Updated April 26, 2026 6:17 pm ET
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—President Trump scrapped a trip by U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan for talks with Iran, leaving himself tough choices over how to force Iran to make concessions the White House wants to strike a deal.
Trump said Iran can reach out to the U.S. if it wants to negotiate an end to the conflict. “They can call us,” he told Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing,” adding any talks would be conducted by phone.
On Saturday, Trump said he decided to cancel the trip by his envoys because an offer from Iran had fallen short of the White House’s expectations, adding that U.S. officials had received a better one shortly after canceling the trip.
“We’re not going to spend 15 hours in airplanes all the time, going back and forth, to be given a document that was not good enough,” he said.
Witkoff and Kushner had been expected to travel to Islamabad for a potential meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, but U.S. and Iranian officials say the two sides remain far apart on issues such as the U.S. blockade, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran’s nuclear program.
The deadlock over talks leaves Trump with uncomfortable choices. He can escalate the conflict, settle for the kind of deal he didn’t want or continue to use the blockade to bring pressure on Iran to compromise.
Trump has appeared reluctant to return to fighting, potentially pulling the U.S. deeper into a conflict that he had wanted to end within four to six weeks. Keeping the blockade in place, while the Iranians prevent the Strait of Hormuz from opening, risks doing further damage to the global economy.
Araghchi returned to Islamabad on Sunday after a brief trip to Oman, another mediator in the conflict. He then left for St. Petersburg, where he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. He could still agree to meet with the U.S. in the coming days, said an Iranian diplomat and other people briefed on the matter.
But there were few signs that a resumption of talks was imminent. On Sunday, Pakistani authorities started to reopen roads and areas of the capital that had been restricted since early last week in preparation for a visit by Vice President JD Vance, which was also canceled.
In their public remarks, Iranian officials doubled down on demands that have been holding up talks.
In a phone call with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian criticized a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and demanded guarantees America wouldn’t attack again. He “urged Pakistan and other Islamic countries to help push Washington toward a dialogue free of pressure and threats,” Iran’s presidency said in a statement.
Trump blamed internal divisions in Iran for the cancellation of Saturday’s trip. “There is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership,’” he said in a post on social media. “Nobody knows who is in charge, including them.”
Tehran’s hard-liners, long opposed to a rapprochement with the West, have argued the U.S. should not be trusted after it and Israel twice launched strikes on Iran in the middle of negotiations with Washington.
“The Iranians don’t want to meet face-to-face until their positions are closer together” with the U.S., said Sanam Vakil, a Middle East director at Chatham House, a think tank in London. “They don’t see value in meeting because it gives Trump too much control of the narrative that they are desperate to talk.”
An initial round of talks in Pakistan led by Vance collapsed earlier this month. The White House canceled a trip by him last week. He is now on standby to travel in case there is progress in the negotiations, the White House said late Friday.
Diplomatic efforts appeared to pick up Friday when Araghchi arrived in Islamabad. He was there officially to send messages to the U.S. via Pakistan, his spokesman said.
Both sides are grappling with a set of interlocking issues that stand in the way of a long-term end to the conflict. That includes differences of opinion over the terms of the deal that halted fighting early this month.
Tehran is insisting the U.S. end a blockade on its ports before any talks can resume. Washington imposed the restrictions after Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a passage where a fifth of the world’s oil once transited.
“Both sides think they have the upper hand,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group. “They should reopen maritime traffic simultaneously.”
On Sunday, Iran’s deputy parliament speaker, Ali Nikzad, said that Iran wanted to remain in control of the waterway indefinitely. “We will by no means return the Strait of Hormuz to its previous state,” he was quoted as saying by state media.
In Pakistan, Araghchi said Saturday he had discussed the end of Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The U.S. announced a cease-fire between the two sides earlier this month to allow talks with Iran to go forward.
But fighting has continued. Israel hit southern and eastern Lebanon with a wave of strikes on Saturday, saying it was working to eliminate rocket launchers and “immediate threats” to Israeli troops and civilians.
Even if the two sides were to resolve their differences over Lebanon and the blockade, they would still need to bridge the gap on Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S. wants Iran to transfer its highly enriched uranium stockpiles out of the country and to eliminate Iran’s ability to enrich uranium domestically.
Tehran says keeping the nuclear program, which was badly damaged by U.S. attacks last summer, is a red line. “Negotiations can only lead to a proper outcome when our adversaries recognize our nation’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” Iran’s ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, said on social media Saturday.
There has been some movement on enrichment. The U.S. is currently demanding a 20-year suspension of enrichment, and officials from mediating countries say the U.S. might be willing to allow Iran to carry out some enrichment-related work during the second decade.
Iran has said it could be open to a five-year suspension of enrichment with a possible additional five years in which its enrichment program would remain restricted, according to people close to the talks.
While the U.S. and Iran are struggling to make progress toward a deal, both sides appear reluctant to resume fighting. Trump extended the cease-fire deal last week.
He has, nonetheless, kept up his threats against Iran. Iran has told Pakistan that ending such threats could help convince hard-liners that now is time to restart talks, according to an Iranian diplomat and other people briefed on the communications.
With Islamabad on standby to host talks should they go forward, life in the capital has been upended in recent days. The city’s central districts remained largely on lockdown Saturday with entrance points largely sealed. Checkpoints have been set to stop both commuters and cargo trucks. Flashing cars carrying heavily armed policemen are patrolling the capital.
Araghchi was due to head to Oman, which has served as a bridge to Arab countries, and then onto Moscow. Russia has warm ties with Tehran and is seen as a possible place where Iran could transfer its uranium stockpiles.
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Appeared in the April 27, 2026, print edition as ‘Aborted Pakistan Trip Leaves Trump Tough Choices on Iran’.
Benoit Faucon is a Middle East correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He focuses on the geopolitics of oil, Iran, and Russia’s involvement in Africa and the Middle East. He also has strayed into investigative stories such as pharmaceutical counterfeits, sanctions, money laundering and terror finance.
His work was part of an award-winning package at the Overseas Press Club of America in 2017 and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
A four-time winner of the William Clabby awards, Benoit was also part of a finalist team for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for stories on the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The team also earned recognition at the New York News Publishers Association Award that year.
He has written or co-written five books, Including “West Bankers” (Mashreq Publishing, 2010) on the financial history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, “A Cartel Named Daech” (First Editions, 2017, with Clement Fayol) and an upcoming book on crisis entrepreneurs.
He joined Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal in 2002 after three years at French dailies Le Figaro and les Echos.
Laurence Norman is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
Natalie Andrews is a White House correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, covering domestic policy and President Trump’s legislative agenda. She joined the Journal in 2014 and began covering Congress in 2017 and did so until 2024, covering two impeachments, the congressional response to the Covid pandemic and numerous election cycles. She focused particularly on House leadership and the