Trump extends Iran deadline to Tuesday, threatens to bomb power plants and bridges

On Easter Sunday morning, April 5, 2026, President Trump posted to Truth Social: "Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH!" He followed with: "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!" The posts came at approximately 8:03 a.m. Eastern, the third time Trump had extended the original February 28 Hormuz reopening deadline. White House press secretary KLKaroline Leavitt confirmed the posts reflected the president's official position.

In a Sunday afternoon interview with Axios, Trump said: "We're in deep negotiations. If they make a deal, great. If they don't make a deal, I am blowing up everything over there." The Easter posts arrived hours after Trump announced "WE GOT HIM!" at 12:08 a.m., celebrating the rescue of the weapons systems officer from the F-15E Strike Eagle shot down over Iran on April 3. The successful rescue emboldened Trump's rhetoric.

International law experts warned that threatening to bomb Iran's civilian power grid violates international humanitarian law. The Fourth Geneva Convention and its Additional Protocols prohibit attacks on objects indispensable to civilian survival, including electric power plants that primarily serve civilian populations. The ICRC confirmed that attacking power plants supplying electricity to hospitals, water treatment facilities, and residences would constitute a war crime under customary international law unless the plants were themselves used as military installations.

Trump's threat also extended to bridges, which international law similarly protects when they primarily serve civilian transportation. Administration officials did not publicly identify which power plants or bridges Trump planned to target, nor did they provide a legal justification for why the infrastructure constituted valid military objectives. Pete Hegseth's Pentagon did not publicly explain what targeting review process would govern the threatened strikes.

Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey submitted a joint ceasefire proposal to Iran's Foreign Minister AAAbbas Araghchi and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff on April 5. The proposal called for a 45-day ceasefire and the phased reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Araghchi said Iran had formulated its response to the intermediaries but refused direct talks with the United States while strikes continued. Iran's position was that it would not fully reopen the strait until the U.S. compensated Iran for war damage, a precondition the Trump administration has publicly rejected.

Araghchi's statement was a shift from earlier Iranian messaging, which had denied any negotiation was underway at all. The public acknowledgment that Iran had "formulated a response" to the ceasefire proposal was the closest Iran came to signaling flexibility since the war began February 28.

Congress has not authorized the war. The House voted 212-219 against a war powers resolution that would have required withdrawal. The Senate voted 47-53. The War Powers Resolution's 60-day clock, triggered when Trump notified Congress of the strikes on February 28, expires approximately April 28, 2026. Congress is on recess until April 13. If Congress does not authorize the war before April 28, Trump would legally be required to withdraw forces within 30 days. No administration of either party has ever complied with a War Powers Resolution withdrawal requirement.

Sen. Tim Kaine of 🏛️Virginia was the primary sponsor of the Senate war powers resolution. Sen. Rand Paul of 🐴Kentucky co-sponsored. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the administration had sufficient authority under the president's Article II commander-in-chief powers. None of the Republican leadership publicly supported requiring a congressional vote before the April 28 deadline.

The International Energy Agency's Executive Director FBFatih Birol warned on April 1, 2026, that April would be "much worse than March" for global oil markets. Brent crude briefly topped $108 per barrel on April 5 and 6. U.S. West 🤠Texas Intermediate briefly reached $114. The IEA characterized the Hormuz closure as the largest oil supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, surpassing the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Roughly 10 million barrels per day, or 20% of global oil supply, are blocked from reaching world markets.

Time magazine reported on April 5 that the Hormuz closure was driving a "wave of global energy rationing" spanning multiple continents, with Pakistan limiting fuel sales, Egypt subsidizing emergency reserves, and Japanese refiners drawing down strategic stockpiles. The U.S. national average gas price stood at $4.02 per gallon on April 5, up from $2.87 before the war began. Diesel nationally averaged $5.12 per gallon.

Trump's Easter morning posts drew international condemnation. Senate Minority Leader CSChuck Schumer said: "As you head off to church and celebrate with friends and family, the President of the United States is ranting like an unhinged madman on social media." French President EMEmmanuel Macron said France "strongly opposes" attacking civilian infrastructure and called the Iran war "not our operation." German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the threat deeply concerning and inconsistent with international law.

The criticism crossed partisan lines in tone, if not in Republican votes. No Senate Republican publicly endorsed attacking civilian power plants. The backlash highlighted a gap between Trump's escalatory rhetoric and U.S. military targeting doctrine, which requires targeting committees, legal review, and proportionality assessments before authorizing strikes on civilian infrastructure.

The Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, adopted in 1977, codifies the prohibition on attacking civilian objects in international armed conflict. Article 52(2) requires attacks to be limited to military objectives that make "an effective contribution to military action." Article 54 specifically prohibits attacking "objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population," including power plants that feed civilian hospitals and water systems.

The United States signed Additional Protocol I in 1977 but never ratified it. The U.S. government has officially recognized the core civilian protection rules as customary international law binding on all states. During the 1991 Gulf War, U.S. attacks on Iraq's power grid drew IHL criticism. By the 2003 Iraq War, U.S. targeting doctrine explicitly protected civilian power plants. Trump's Easter threat reversed 30 years of U.S. targeting doctrine.

Trump has extended his Hormuz deadline three times since the war began February 28. He set the original deadline within 48 hours of the strike launch, extended it to March 26, then to April 6, and on April 5 moved it again to Tuesday, April 7, at 8 p.m. Eastern. Each extension coincided with active diplomatic activity from third-country intermediaries.

A tension sits at the center of Trump's Iran strategy. Attacking the power grid and bridges would dramatically escalate the war, likely trigger Iranian retaliation against U.S. bases and Gulf state oil infrastructure, and could push oil prices above $150 per barrel. Each extension buys time for a deal while maintaining the threat. Trump's Axios interview made this explicit: a deal was possible by Tuesday, but he would "blow up everything" if it wasn't.