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A bizarre scenario is unfolding with Iran war negotiations. President Trump says talks are terrific, even “perfect.” Iran says they’re not happening.

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An Iranian military spokesman said, “Our first and last word, from the very first day, has been, is, and will remain: Someone like us will never come to terms with someone like you. Not now, and not ever.” He taunted, “You are negotiating with yourselves.”

Trump is undeterred. He reportedly presented Iran (via Pakistan, as an intermediary) a 15-point plan to end the conflict. Among the points: Dismantle existing nuclear capabilities and commit to never pursuing nuclear weapons; hand over your enriched uranium stockpile and agree to stop enriching on Iranian territory; dismantle the Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo nuclear facilities; stop funding, directing and arming regional proxies and abandon your terrorist proxy “paradigm”; keep the Strait of Hormuz open; limit your missile program in range and quantity, and only for self-defense.

Magnificent goals.

Iran will never comply.

Not even for—as Trump’s plan proposes—an end to all sanctions and, among other perks, help from the U.S. to advance its civilian nuclear program. Truly, nuclear expertise from America to boost electricity output for Iranian homes and businesses is hardly what this regime has been holding out for these past three decades. It has a far more ideological and all-consuming purpose.

Think of Gaza. That place has been pulverized to dust. Yet the Hamas terrorists have steadfastly rejected all demands, coercion and compulsion to disarm. They will remain ideologically pure even if it means ruling a heap of rubble and corpses.

Iran’s regime is even more obdurate.

Here was Iran’s reported counteroffer, in part: The U.S. must close all its bases in the Gulf and pay full reparations for the attacks; Israel’s operation in Lebanon ends; Iran has no limits on its missile program and gets effective control over the Strait of Hormuz.

Outrageous as these conditions are, one can imagine President Trump earnestly considering them.

Iran knows America is stuck. It knows Trump is eager to end the war and add another notional triumph to his résumé as a peacemaker. If he wants a deal, Iran has the leverage to drive a very hard bargain.

We stay tuned to see how far into this trap America goes, and at what cost.

German President: ‘Rift’ With America Is ‘Too Deep’

Germany’s alliance with the United States is in danger, according to the president of Germany.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier stated that the division between the two nations is nothing less than a deep rift. He was speaking at an event marking the 75th anniversary of his nation’s postwar Foreign Ministry.

• “The rift is too deep, and the trust in American power politics has been lost, not only among our allies but … worldwide,” he stated.
• He also said there is no going back to the relationship before Jan. 20, 2025, the date U.S. President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term.

Steinmeier criticized America’s war in Iran, calling it a violation of international law and adding that it was completely avoidable, unnecessary and a massive mistake. According to him, President Trump’s assertion that Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S. “holds no water.”

Steinmeier actually called for Germany to break from America:

The U.S. government has a different world view to ours, one that shows no regard for established rules, partnership or hard-won trust. We cannot change that. We must deal with it. But this is my conviction: We have no reason to align ourselves with this world view.

Steinmeier’s office is ceremonial, which makes his strong comments unusual.

Germany’s head of government, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, has not said the war has violated international law. The closest Merz came to that was saying Germany would not get involved. Steinmeier’s comments, however, give insight into how Germany really views the U.S.—these views align with Bible prophecy.

The Trumpet and its predecessor, the Plain Truth, have warned for decades of a coming rift between the United States and Germany and where the Bible prophesies it will lead. Our booklet He Was Right, detailing the accuracy of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Bible-based forecasts, states in the “Atlantic Rift” chapter:

The growing rift between the U.S. and the EU is tipping the balance of power decisively in Europe’s—particularly Germany’s—favor. This should stir the deepest alarm within America’s leaders, if they only knew where it was leading! They ignore Mr. Armstrong’s warnings at their own peril.

EU’s New Defense and Trade Partner: Australia

The European Union and Australia announced the finalized details of a major trade deal on Tuesday (Australian time) following eight years of negotiations.

The deal adds to a string of trade agreements made by Europe to secure its independence from the United States.

• A March 23 EU press release explains how, with this deal, the EU and Australia will remove nearly all tariffs on each other’s products.
• The EU will gain more access to Australia’s critical minerals. Australia produces half the world’s lithium, and according to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the deal will meet two thirds of the EU’s raw material needs.
• EU exports to Australia will grow by as much as a third in the coming decade.
• EU investment in Australia could grow by 87 percent.
• The EU will secure “supply chains of critical raw materials.”
• EU companies will be allowed more access to Australian government procurement contracts.

Australia and the EU also announced a defense partnership as well as Australia’s negotiations to join Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation group.

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “With these dynamic new partnerships on security and defense, as well as trade, we are moving even closer together.”
• Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated that this is the EU and Australia “asserting that we believe in free and fair trade.”

The deal is strongly opposed by Europe’s farmers, however, who will likely fight tooth and nail to stop it from being implemented, especially after they failed to stop the Latin American mercosur deal.

• It underscores the fact that the EU needs to shrink down and have stronger leadership if it wants to keep making deals like this.

This partnership will be good for Europe but bad for the U.S. and, in the long term, dangerous for Australia.

The Bible prophesies that the end-time nations of Israel, which include Australia and America, will be betrayed and destroyed by a German-led Europe. Australia, though it may think it is securing itself from China and growing global economic upheaval, is providing its future conqueror with critical minerals while weakening America’s global position.

Barriers to Ending Partial DHS Shutdown

Markwayne Mullin was sworn in yesterday as the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Mullin, who had represented Oklahoma in the United States Senate, replaces Kristi Noem and takes on a deeply troubled agency.

• dhs has been in partial shutdown for 40 days due to Congress’s refusal to pass a funding bill.
• The impasse has triggered furloughs, delayed paychecks for tens of thousands of employees, and produced extremely long security lines and delays at airports nationwide.

This week, Senate Republicans offered Democrats a new proposal to break the stalemate that would fund most of dhs, including the Transportation Security Administration, while postponing funding for certain Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations for later consideration.

• President Trump has complicated matters by declaring he will not sign any bill to end the shutdown unless Congress first passes the SAVE America Act, a landmark bill that requires stricter voter ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements. Senate Republicans are urging him to accept a narrower deal separating the issues.

Even if Trump relents, a far greater barrier remains: Democrats continue to refuse full funding for ice and for Customs and Border Protection without sweeping “reforms.” These include requiring judicial warrants before agents enter private homes, banning masks during operations, mandating body cameras, and imposing other limits on enforcement.

• Many Republicans warn that these changes would cripple the Trump administration’s promised largest deportation operation in U.S. history, the central plank to the 2024 Republican platform.

America’s undocumented population in 2016, according to a 2018 PLOS One paper estimate, was 16 to 29 million, far above the oft-cited 11 million figure. Under Joe Biden, another 5 to 7 million people entered the nation illegally and remained. The Democrats’ proposed restrictions would make large-scale interior enforcement nearly impossible.

This drama reveals a much deeper national crisis, one that Bible prophecy foretold for the modern descendants of ancient Israel, which include the Americans and the British.

Herbert W. Armstrong made this clear decades ago in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Scripture promises blessings for obeying God’s law and warns of curses for disobedience. One prophecy states:

The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand …. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down … throughout all thy land ….
—Deuteronomy 28:49, 52

That collapse of “high and fenced walls” vividly pictures America’s open borders in recent years. Despite campaign promises, the Trump administration still struggles to “build the wall” and reverse the Biden-era immigration surge.

This is not mere politics. It is the unfolding of biblical curses on a nation that has rejected God. Without repentance toward God, no political deal, no new secretary and no border wall will solve the immigration siege already at our gates.

IN OTHER NEWS

Lebanon boots Iranian ambassador: The Lebanese Foreign Ministry announced yesterday that Iran’s ambassador, Mohammed Reza Shibani, must leave no later than Sunday. Lebanon also recalled its ambassador to Iran for consultation. This marks a major change in Lebanese politics. For decades, Iran has largely ruled Lebanon through the terrorist organization Hezbollah. Hezbollah labeled the Foreign Ministry’s decision a “sin.” Soon after the announcement, Iran launched a missile into Lebanese airspace (which was intercepted). Hezbollah’s political entrenchment in Lebanese politics and physical entrenchment in Lebanon’s south are weakening. Successful Israeli campaigns over the past few years, including the current Iran war, have weakened Hezbollah and thereby Iran’s influence. Bible prophecy shows that Iran will lose control of Lebanon and that Lebanon will become part of a new Middle Eastern alliance, one even more dangerous than Iran’s “axis of resistance.” Learn more in “The Fall and Rise of Lebanon.”

Electoral paralysis in Denmark? Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats once again earned a plurality from Denmark voters, but they received only 22 percent of the total, their weakest result in more than a century, which prompted Frederiksen to resign. Neither the center-left Social Democrats and its left-wing bloc nor any other alliance has a majority, which means that, once again, another European democracy could struggle to form a coalition and suffer political paralysis.

Hawaii flooding could cost $1 billion: Back-to-back storms have caused Hawaii’s worst flooding in more than 20 years, sweeping homes off foundations, floating cars out of driveways, and leaving floors, walls and countertops covered in thick, reddish volcanic mud. First responders have conducted 233 rescues statewide, but no deaths have been reported. Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said the damage to roads, homes, schools, airports and a hospital in Kula on Maui could reach $1 billion. For a biblical perspective on such calamities, read Why ‘Natural’ Disasters?

America to build moon base: nasa will spend $30 billion to build a permanent base on the moon, administrator Jared Isaacman announced yesterday. This replaces previous plans to build a space station orbiting the moon. nasa’s Artemis ii crewed mission is scheduled to launch in a fortnight, with a 2027 Artemis iii test flight in low Earth orbit and Artemis iv scheduled to return man to the moon in early 2028. The base, to be built in phases over seven years, will require more frequent missions to the moon, with a new launch every six months. If nasa can pull it off, humanity would enter a new and exciting era in space exploration more than 50 years after the last Apollo astronaut walked on the moon. Space exploration is about more than mere science, technology, prestige or even defense: It’s a great opportunity for all people to lift up their eyes and gain a glimpse of a grand vision for humanity.