WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD, April 19 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday his envoys would return to Pakistan for new talks with Iran, while threatening new attacks on Iran’s bridges and power plants unless it accepts his terms.

Trump said the U.S. delegation would arrive on Monday evening, a timetable that leaves just a day for talks to make progress before a two-week ceasefire ends.

“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” he posted on social media. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”

However, there was no immediate confirmation from Iran that it would attend any new talks. Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that there had been no decision taken to send a delegation while a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports was in place.

A White House official said the U.S. delegation would be headed by Vice President JD Vance, who led the war’s first peace talks a week ago. Trump’s envoy Steve Kushner and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would also attend. Earlier, Trump had told ABC News and MS Now that Vance would not go.

Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, earlier said the two sides had made progress but were still far apart on nuclear issues and the Strait of Hormuz.

The vital shipping strait remained closed on Sunday, a day after Iran fired on two vessels that tried to cross.

Iran, which has blocked off the strait to ships apart from its own since the United States and Israel attacked on February 28, had announced on Friday it would reopen it. But it reversed that decision on Saturday after Trump declined to lift a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

“Iran decided to fire bullets yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz — A Total Violation of our Ceasefire Agreement!” Trump wrote in Sunday morning’s post. “That wasn’t nice, was it?”

Strait of Hormuz Still Shut

Trump’s renewed threat to hit Iran’s power plants and bridges fits a pattern of such warnings throughout the war, several of which preceded moves to de-escalate. He abruptly announced the ceasefire two weeks ago just hours after declaring that Iran’s “whole civilisation will die tonight”.

Iran has said that if the United States attacks its civilian infrastructure it would hit power stations and desalination plants of Gulf Arab neighbours.

Now in its eighth week, the war has created the most severe shock to global energy supplies in history, sending oil prices surging because of the de facto closure of the strait, which before the war carried one-fifth of the world’s oil shipments.

Two liquefied petroleum gas tankers were seen on ship-tracking websites moving eastbound towards the strait early on Sunday morning, but the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Iran’s armed forces turned them back. Marine traffic data showed no other movements after midnight.

Friday’s announcement that the strait would reopen caused the sharpest one-day drop in oil prices in years, while stock markets hit fresh all-time highs on the expectation that the disruption would soon end. But with the strait yet to reopen, markets could face new volatility when they reopen on Monday.

Amrita Sen, founder of the Energy Aspects think tank, predicted oil prices would rise on Monday when traders returned to their desks having realised they might have been prematurely optimistic last week.

“Events over the weekend with Iran firing on merchant vessels and shutting the strait again highlight just how precarious the situation is,” she said.

Thousands of people have been killed by U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran and in an Israeli invasion of Lebanon conducted in parallel. Iran responded to attacks with missiles and drones against its Arab neighbours that host U.S. bases.

Pakistani Capital Locks Down for Talks

Two giant U.S. C-17 cargo planes landed at Pakistan’s Nur Khan air base on Sunday afternoon carrying security equipment and vehicles in preparation for the U.S. delegation’s arrival, two Pakistani security sources said.

City authorities in the capital Islamabad halted public transport and heavy goods traffic through the city. Rolls of barbed wire were rolled out near the Serena Hotel where last week’s talks were held. The hotel told all guests on Sunday to leave.

When U.S. and Iranian negotiators met last weekend in Islamabad, Washington proposed a 20-year suspension of all Iranian nuclear activity, while Iran suggested a halt of 3 to 5 years, according to people familiar with the proposals.

A statement from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said Iran’s navy was ready to inflict “new bitter defeats” on its enemies.

Apart from the two-week ceasefire in the Iran war set to expire early on Wednesday, Israel and Lebanon announced a separate ceasefire last week.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Susan Heavey, James Mackenzie and Peter Graff; Editing by Sergio Non, William Mallard, Alex Richardson and Tomasz Janowski)

The post Trump Says US Delegation to Go to Pakistan for Iran Talks, Threatens New Strikes appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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Day after day, new Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and her fellow Democrats demonstrate how much of their agenda is simply about securing power.

Spanberger signed a bill Monday that added the Commonwealth of Virginia to the National Popular Vote Compact, which is a misguided and downright unconstitutional attempt to get around the Electoral College in presidential elections.

The compact, which has now enlisted 18 states and the District of Columbia, would make the state’s Electoral College votes be whatever the national popular vote is, potentially nullifying democracy in the name of democracy.

I’d like to note that this move is awful for several reasons, the first one being that the National Popular Vote idea is a toxic one that undermines America’s federal, constitutional system.

The Electoral College really is the best method for a country as large and diverse as the U.S. to choose presidents. It ensures that the only truly “national” election for an office as important as the presidency relies on a consensus of states and the varied polities represented by the states.

The Electoral College ensures that the interests of the American people aren’t just represented by states like California and Texas, but by Wyoming and Delaware too.

I chose that mix of modern red and blue states for a reason.

The Left has pushed particularly hard for the Electoral College’s abolition in recent years because they believe switching to a popular vote favors them.

That sort of held until 2024 when President Donald Trump won the election and the popular vote too.

There is a perception that big states are blue and small states are red, but that’s not true.

The electoral map is mixed and constantly evolving. The idea that giving small states a slight comparative advantage favors Republicans isn’t true when you consider tiny, deep blue states like Rhode Island.

The electoral map is, as always, in flux.

Changing the system that has been remarkably effective since the beginning to serve the temporary interests of one party is foolish and shortsighted. Adding more “democracy” to our presidential elections is hardly a guarantee that we will have better presidents.

Fortunately, the Founders created a system not reliant on pure democracy. They made one that prevents large-scale constitutional changes without a massive amount of buy-in from the states the Left seemingly wants to bypass.

But more democracy for the sake of democracy is not really what this is about. This is about the fortunes of the Democratic Party and the Left in particular right now.

They look at America and see an electoral map that looks increasingly stacked against them.

Blue state uninhabitability for middle-class Americans means that the states with Democratic majorities are bleeding electoral votes, and the situation will soon be much worse.

As David Marcus, a Fox News columnist, sagely put on X, the following information is almost certainly why Virginia Democrats are “going for broke” with power grabs.

Big, blue states are getting less “big.” Red states are reaping the benefits. And that means that without a switch to something like a national popular vote their electoral road to the White House looks increasingly steep.

This National Popular Vote move is very on brand for Spanberger and the new Democrat majority in Virginia. They’ve spent much of their early days in power passing as many far-Left laws as possible, most notably focusing on changes to ensure that their current majority becomes permanent.

That’s why, despite Spanberger saying years ago that gerrymandering is “detrimental to our democracy,” she’s signed off on one of the most extremely partisan redistricting plans in the country.

Democrats did this while essentially bypassing a Virginia constitutional amendment that established a bipartisan redistricting commission.

Spanberger’s popularity has tanked, but it seems the reasoning is that popularity doesn’t matter so much if the game can be jerry-rigged to keep themselves in power. It’s not the worst bet, though these schemes often have a way of backfiring.

The moves accrue little benefit to effective governance in Virginia, of course. But they do deliver maximum benefits to Democrat politicians who undoubtedly hope that they can make the commonwealth a one-party state and yet another lab of left-wing social engineering à la California.

That Virginia Democrats signed off on the National Popular Vote Compact stems from similar reasoning.

They need to solidify wins now. The “affordability” message was just election-time sloganeering. The party is just as radical as ever. And now that it’s pulled off a win, the party won’t let the lie go to waste.

Both the ruthless redistricting plan and the National Popular Vote sign off demonstrate that the Democrats aren’t going to change their policies to win over voters. Instead, they intend to change the system so they won’t have to.

The post Virginia Dems Sign Onto National Popular Vote Compact. It’s All About Power, Not Democracy. appeared first on The Daily Signal.