U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday abruptly canceled a planned trip by special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to Pakistan, pulling back from what had been billed just a day earlier as a potential jump-start to fragile Iran talks.
“I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going is [to] Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership.’ Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!”
The sudden reversal underscores the whiplash surrounding the administration’s diplomatic push in recent days — and Trump’s impatience with negotiations that aren’t quickly yielding results.
In a separate statement provided by the White House, Trump said the U.S. has “all the cards.”
“I’ve told my people a little while ago they were getting ready to leave, and I said, ‘Nope, you’re not making an 18 hour flight to go there,’” the president said. “We have all the cards. They can call us anytime they want, but you’re not going to be making any more 18 hour flights to sit around talking about nothing.”
It comes after Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and his delegation left Islamabad after arriving Friday for talks with Pakistani leaders.
The trip to Islamabad had been assembled rapidly, with the White House on Friday signaling that Witkoff and Kushner would travel to Pakistan for indirect talks with Iranian officials, with Islamabad serving as an intermediary. Vice President JD Vance was expected to join if the discussions showed signs of progress, weeks after an unsuccessful trip to Pakistan himself.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Friday that “we’ve certainly seen some progress from the Iranian side in the last couple of days.”
But the president’s cancellation Saturday signals a deal is far from being reached.
