President Donald Trump has long been looking for this weekend to be a big one for his presidency.

The World Cup returned to the U.S. on Friday for the first time in 32 years after Trump threw himself into winning the bid during his first term to co-host the soccer tournament. He will be feted Sunday, his 80th birthday, during a UFC fight night that’s expected to draw thousands to the White House grounds. Hours after the final bout, he’s scheduled to jet off to the G7 summit in the French Alps for talks with several world leaders.

But Trump set expectations even higher for the coming days when he announced Thursday that the U.S. and Iran could come to terms this weekend on an agreement that would set the pathway to end the three-month-old conflict that has been broadly unpopular with Americans and has rattled global oil markets. He said he plans to dispatch Vice President JD Vance to the signing of the agreement.

Trump has said on several occasions in recent weeks that he’s on the cusp of a deal without anything coming to fruition. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted Friday on X that an agreement “has never been closer.” He gave no details, saying a final deal was still pending.

Still, Trump is claiming this time might be different.

The breakthrough comes after he threatened to escalate the conflict with more intense bombardment of Iran and by seizing control of Iran’s oil industry, including capturing Iran’s vital Kharg Island oil facility. The president’s threats followed back-and-forth strikes this week that had imperiled an already fragile ceasefire agreed to in early April.

“They’ve taken a pounding like very few people could take,” Trump said in an Oval Office exchange with reporters as he explained why he was confident that, this time, a deal would come through. “And they want to make the deal a lot more than I do.”

Trump offered scant details about the settlement he said is taking shape, but he told reporters that he believed the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who was thought to have been wounded on the first day of the war and has not been seen in public since, is ready to sign off on the deal.

Underscoring the fragility of the talks, Trump on Friday lashed out at Iranian officials on social media and said: “They better get their act together, and FAST!”

The White House on Friday signaled that efforts on landing the deal continued. The contours of the emerging agreement call for Iran’s nuclear material to be destroyed and removed and its nuclear program to be dismantled, according to a senior administration official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Iran is expected to receive sanctions relief if a deal is reached, but Vance stressed its government would only receive “economic benefits” if it meets obligations.

“The president is going to get us a good outcome, one way or the other,” Vance said in a post on X.

Trump in March warned he would target Iran’s infrastructure and put American troops on Kharg Island before he ultimately backed down, and the two countries agreed to the temporary ceasefire.

Almost immediately after raising the idea again on social media Thursday, Trump appeared to back away. He called into a morning show on Fox News Channel and questioned whether Americans had the “stomach” for an option that would require putting U.S. troops in harm’s way.

Hours later, Trump announced he had decided to cancel orders for “very hard” strikes on Iran and said a deal was close.

Even as Trump was posting on social media Thursday about escalating strikes, mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar reportedly had been making progress in their talks with Iran.

At the same time, Iran also might have reset the equation for Trump with its decision last weekend to attack Israel directly for the first time since the ceasefire after Israeli forces carried out military strikes on Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.

With the move, Iran signaled that Israel could no longer bomb Lebanon without facing a meaningful reaction and in the process also raised the cost for the U.S. to follow through on its commitment to help safeguard Israel.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump has grown impatient with Iran and the renewed strikes and threats on Kharg Island and Iran’s energy sector were intended to get the negotiations back to the “right place.”

Polls show that the conflict is largely unpopular with Americans. McCaul said he believes the Iranians want to “try to drag this out as long as they can,” closer to the midterm elections in November, because they see that as being to their benefit.

Deal or no deal, the war will loom large during next week’s talks at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France.

Trump has frequently criticized some of the group’s leaders — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — for resisting his calls to aid the U.S. and Israel in the conflict.

Trump said he is optimistic he could have an agreement before his talks with leaders in France.

“The strait will officially open as soon as we sign, which could be soon, very soon — maybe over the weekend in Europe,” Trump said.