Trump turns up the pressure as US–Iran talks resume under threat

US President Donald Trump has warned that Iran’s supreme leader should be “very worried,” striking a confrontational tone just days before Washington and Tehran sit down for their first formal negotiations since the United States bombed Iran’s nuclear program last year.

The warning comes after weeks of escalating tension triggered by a deadly crackdown by Iranian security forces on nationwide anti-government protests. In response, Trump ordered a US military “armada” into the region and openly threatened further strikes, raising fears of a wider conflict.

Iran, for its part, has issued its own warnings. Its military has said any US attack would be met with immediate retaliation, including strikes on American forces and assets across the region.

“I would say he (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader) should be very worried. Yeah, he should be,” Trump said in an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, referring to Ali Khamenei.

Trump said he first raised the possibility of military action during Iran’s violent clampdown on street protests last month, arguing that his posture has helped embolden demonstrators, even as he stopped short of direct intervention.

The high-stakes talks are scheduled for Friday in Muscat, the capital of Oman. According to Iran’s state-affiliated Tasnim News Agency, the negotiations will bring together Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Despite the return to diplomacy, the two sides are approaching the table with sharply different priorities. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made clear that Washington wants talks to go well beyond nuclear issues.

The Trump administration, Rubio said, wants discussions to cover Iran’s nuclear program as well as “the range of their ballistic missiles,” “their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region,” and “the treatment of their own people.”

Tehran has drawn a far narrower boundary. Citing Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Tasnim reported that negotiations will be limited to Iran’s nuclear program and the lifting of sanctions, which it described as the country’s “primary demand.”

Araghchi arrived in Muscat on Thursday at the head of a diplomatic delegation, according to the Foreign Ministry. Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the talks would be conducted “with authority” and aimed at achieving a “fair, mutually satisfactory and honorable understanding” on the nuclear issue.

“At all times, we consider ourselves obliged to demand the rights of the Iranian nation,” Baghaei said. He added that Iran also sees itself as responsible for not missing diplomatic opportunities that could secure national interests and preserve regional peace and stability, even as past experiences with the US continue to shape Tehran’s caution.

Alongside the diplomatic messaging, Iran has also been signaling military readiness. State-run Press TV reported that Iran’s “most advanced long-range ballistic missile, the Khorramshahr 4, has been deployed” at an underground Revolutionary Guard missile site. The missile is said to have a range of more than 1,240 miles and the capacity to carry a 3,300-pound warhead.

The talks mark a fragile restart after diplomacy collapsed last year. Iran and the US held several rounds of indirect nuclear negotiations in April and May 2025, but those discussions were derailed by a surprise Israeli strike on Iran in mid-June, followed days later by a US attack that effectively ended the process.

Trump has repeatedly defended those strikes.

“If we didn’t take out that nuclear, we wouldn’t have peace in the Middle East, because the Arab countries could have never done that,” he said in the NBC interview. “They were very, very afraid of Iran. They’re not afraid of Iran anymore,” he added.

Trump also claimed Iran is trying to revive its nuclear program elsewhere.

“They tried to go back to the site. They weren’t even able to get near it,” he said.