Trump says he held off a planned Iran strike after Gulf leaders asked him to wait

United States President Donald Trump said he was postponing a planned attack on Iran that had been slated for the following day after leaders of three Gulf Arab states asked him to hold fire while what he described as serious negotiations ran, according to Washington-datelined agency reporting syndicated internationally on the night of 18 May 2026.

Summaries published by France24 and RFI—both carrying AFP material—quote Trump writing on Truth Social that he would “hold off on our planned Military attack of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was scheduled for tomorrow,” naming Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates as the parties urging delay because they believed a deal could still be reached.

The same wire chain reports Trump characterising the hoped-for outcome as including no nuclear weapons for Iran, and saying he had told the U.S. military it would not execute the scheduled strike while also instructing it to remain prepared for a “full, large scale assault” on short notice if an acceptable agreement does not materialise.

That formulation leaves open how long a pause might last and what would count as “acceptable” on the American side—variables regional capitals and Tehran will read against the president’s own harder-edged posts in preceding hours about deadlines and consequences.

How this sits in the wider May 2026 file

AFP’s context paragraphs bundled with the postponement note frame a U.S.–Israel military campaign against Iran dating to late February 2026, a fragile April ceasefire narrative, and limited diplomatic shuttling—including a single round of talks in Pakistan—alongside fresh reporting that Iran had answered a new U.S. proposal.

Al Jazeera’s rolling live file for 18 May captured the same beat as part of a dense war diary, useful for readers who want chronology adjacent to drone-strike and energy-market headlines even when individual posts are not standalone explainers.

What NewsTenet is not claiming here

This page does not verify from independent military sources that a specific strike package was locked for a named hour, nor does it reproduce classified planning assumptions.

It restates only what open media attributed to Trump’s social post and to the diplomatic context wires attached—information that can move quickly if talks advance or if either side resumes kinetic signalling.