Trump Promises 'Very Powerful' Iran Strikes Within 2-3 Weeks

US President Donald Trump told the nation on Tuesday that American forces would deliver a "very powerful" series of strikes against Iran within two to three weeks, extending the military campaign well past the April 6 deadline that diplomats had treated as a potential off-ramp.

"We will finish what we started, and it will be very powerful — like nothing they have ever seen," Trump said in a 22-minute address from the Oval Office, according to a White House transcript released minutes after the broadcast.

Oil futures jumped immediately. Brent crude rose 4.2% in after-hours trading, crossing $121 a barrel for the first time since the conflict began three weeks ago.

April 6 Deadline Dies

The speech effectively killed a timeline that had circulated among European and Gulf diplomats for days. French President Emmanuel Macron and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani had been working toward a ceasefire framework pegged to April 6, according to three diplomatic sources cited by Reuters.

Trump made no mention of negotiations in his address. He did not reference the French-Qatari track.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, asked about the diplomatic effort at a briefing earlier Tuesday, said the United States "remains open to diplomacy when Iran demonstrates it is serious," without providing conditions.

What "Very Powerful" Means

Pentagon officials declined to elaborate on Trump's language. But the phrase tracked with what two senior defence officials told the Associated Press on background: that planning had shifted from targeted energy infrastructure strikes to a broader set of military and command targets.

The US has already launched more than 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iranian targets since March 12, according to Pentagon figures. Strikes have hit oil refineries, port facilities, air defence systems, and at least one site the Iranian government says was a school in Shiraz, killing 168 people including children — a claim the US military disputes, calling the building a "dual-use military communications hub."

Regional Reactions Split

Arabic-language coverage led with Iran's retaliatory missile barrage on Israeli cities — the largest salvo of the war — rather than Trump's speech. Al Jazeera Arabic's headline read: "Iran's response arrives: cluster warheads over Tel Aviv suburbs."

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV framed the oil price surge as the centrepiece. "America started a war it cannot afford," anchor Kang Hui said in the evening newscast, according to a translation by BBC Monitoring. "The world pays the bill."

Hindi-language outlets focused on domestic fuel prices. NDTV India ran Trump's speech as its second story, behind India's reversal of a jet fuel price doubling that had been announced hours earlier.

European coverage centred on the collapsed diplomatic timeline. Germany's Der Spiegel ran the headline: "Trump Shuts the Last Door."

Oil Market Fallout

The International Energy Agency had already warned hours before Trump's speech that April would bring a deeper oil crunch than March. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement that member nations had released 400 million barrels of strategic reserves since the conflict began, with the US Department of Energy adding a 10-million-barrel emergency exchange.

"We are entering uncharted territory for coordinated reserve releases," Birol said.

Fuel prices in the UAE — itself an oil-producing nation — rose by 2 dirhams per litre in April pricing announced Tuesday, with petrol up 33% and diesel up 72% month-on-month, according to the UAE Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre.

What Comes Next

The next concrete date on the military calendar is a classified Pentagon review scheduled for April 8, according to CNN, citing a defence official. Congressional leaders from both parties have been invited to a classified briefing on April 4.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker said in a statement that he would attend but called for "clear objectives and an exit strategy — neither of which we have heard yet."

Iran's Supreme National Security Council has not issued a formal response to Trump's speech. Tehran's UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told reporters at the United Nations that Iran "will defend itself with every means at its disposal" and called the war "an act of aggression in service of a foreign government."

The next 96 hours will determine whether the April 4 congressional briefing produces any legislative constraint on the campaign, or whether the expanded strike timeline proceeds as Trump described.