'Trump is going to hit them a bit,' senior US official says

Iran says forces ready to respond to attacks as Trump reportedly mulls renewing war

Ghalibaf says only option is to accept ‘rights of the Iranian people’ laid out in ceasefire proposal; Pakistan reportedly hosting Iran’s military aircraft despite mediator role

Iran’s chief negotiator in talks with the US said on Monday the Islamic Republic is “ready to deliver a well-deserved response to any aggression,” as US President Donald Trump reportedly considered restarting the war after negotiations with Tehran reached a dead end.

“Mistaken strategy and mistaken decisions will always lead to mistaken results,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X. “The whole world has already figured this out.

“We are prepared for all options; they will be surprised,” he wrote.

In a later post, Ghalibaf added, “There is no alternative but to accept the rights of the Iranian people as laid out in the 14-point proposal.

“Any other approach will be completely inconclusive; nothing but one failure after another. The longer they drag their feet, the more American taxpayers will pay for it,” he stated.

Negotiations with Iran again reached a dead end over the weekend after Tehran refused to make significant concessions on its nuclear program.

Trump said on Monday Iran’s response was a “piece of garbage” and that the current ceasefire was “unbelievably weak.”

The US president claimed that Iranian negotiators told their American counterparts that they were prepared for the US to retrieve Tehran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, but then refrained from putting that concession in the response paper submitted over the weekend. Iran has shown no public indication that it is prepared to make such a concession.

Trump also told Fox News on Monday that he is considering renewing the operation to assist stuck ships out of the Iran-blocked Strait of Hormuz after he called it off last week, about a day after it began. He told the TV station that if he decides to renew Project Freedom, it would “only be a piece” of a larger military operation.

The US has been blockading Iran’s ports, as Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has demanded a ceasefire in Lebanon as part of the talks as well; while there is technically a truce in place there, it has largely unraveled.

While Iran has warned against a global effort to open the Hormuz Strait, the United Kingdom and France announced they will host a multinational meeting on Tuesday of more than 40 defense ministers, on military plans to restore trade flows through the strait.

Trump on Monday held a high-level security meeting in the White House Situation Room to discuss next steps on Iran, a US official told The Times of Israel.

Participants in Monday’s meeting included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, and special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Channel 12 reported, citing two senior US officials, that Trump is considering renewed military action to increase pressure on Iran, with one official quoted as saying: “Trump is going to hit them a bit.”

Separately, US officials told CBS News that Pakistan has been providing a safe haven for Iranian military aircraft, even as it acted as a mediator between Tehran and Washington in an attempt to reach a permanent ceasefire.

The report said that shortly after Trump announced a ceasefire in early April, Islamabad allowed Iranian military aircraft to seek refuge at its airbases, seemingly to prevent them from being struck by the US military.

Israel, which launched the military campaign against Iran jointly with the US in late February, is not represented at the talks. Host Pakistan has no diplomatic ties with Israel and does not recognize its sovereignty.

The ceasefire declared by Trump in April came with core declared goals of the war unfulfilled, including ensuring that Iran does not attain nuclear weapons, destroying its missile program, and creating the conditions for the Iranian public to overthrow the regime.

US sanctions firms, individuals for aiding Iran’s oil trade with China

The US government, meanwhile Monday, announced sanctions against three people and nine companies, including four based in Hong Kong and four in the United Arab Emirates, for aiding Iran’s shipment of oil to China. The ninth company is based in Oman.

The US Treasury move follows sanctions announced on Friday on individuals and companies aiding Iranian purchases of weapons and components used to make drones and ballistic missiles.

It came days before Trump’s planned meeting with Xi Jinping, during which he is expected to press the Chinese leader to help resolve the standoff with Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The Treasury said the new designations by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) were aimed at individuals and entities that helped Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sell and ship its allotment of Iranian oil to China using a series of front companies.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration would keep using sanctions to deprive the Iranian government and military of funding for weapons, its nuclear program, or support for proxies in the region.

“Treasury will continue to cut the Iranian regime off from the financial networks it uses to carry out terrorist acts and to destabilize the global economy,” Bessent said.

The State Department also announced a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms of the IRGC, which is designated by Washington as a terrorist organization, and its branches.

The Treasury said the IRGC relies on shell companies to arrange and receive payment for its allotment of Iranian oil shipments. It said Monday’s action builds on sanctions imposed in July 2025 on Golden Globe, a Turkey-based company that Treasury said handles hundreds of millions of dollars in IRGC oil sales annually.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.