Donald Trump says Israel could strike Iran, which would “blow” America’s imminent nuclear deal
Donald Trump could end up the meat in the sandwich if US ally Israel strikes Iran, which would blow a “pretty good agreement”, the US president said. Follow updates.
World
Don't miss out on the headlines from World. Followed categories will be added to My News.
US President Donald Trump called Thursday on ally Israel not to strike Iran’s nuclear sites, saying a deal remained close if Tehran compromises.
Mr Trump acknowledged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering a strike, which he said could spark a “massive conflict” - leading to a US decision to draw down embassy staff in the region.
“We are fairly close to a pretty good agreement,” Mr Trump told reporters.
Asked about his discussions with Mr Netanyahu, Mr Trump said: “I don’t want them going in, because I think it would blow it.”
Mr Trump quickly added: “Might help it actually, but it also could blow it.”
Mr Trump’s Middle East pointman Steve Witkoff is set to hold a sixth round of talks on Sunday in Oman with Iran, which defiantly said it would raise output of enriched uranium - the key sticking point in talks.
Mr Trump again described himself as a man of peace and said he would prefer a negotiated settlement with Iran.
“I’d love to avoid the conflict. Iran’s going to have to negotiate a little bit tougher - meaning they’re going to have to give us some things that they’re not willing to give us right now,” he said.
On whether Israel could attack Iran, Mr Trump said: “I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen.”
FOLLOW UPDATES BELOW:
TRUMP TO RAISE AUTO IMPORT TARIFFS, SCRAP EV MANDATE
President Donald Trump plans to inform trading partners of unilateral US tariff rates in the coming weeks, as a July deadline approaches for steeper levies to kick in on dozens of economies.
“We’re going to be sending letters out in about a week and a half, two weeks, to countries telling them what the deal is,” Mr Trump told reporters.
Tensions remain elevated between the world’s two biggest economies, with Washington recently accusing Beijing of slow-walking export approvals for rare earth minerals.
It remains unclear if the steeper levies will return for all countries in early July.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told politicians that an extended pause is possible for those “negotiating in good faith.”
“There are 18 important trading partners. We are working toward deals on those,” he said.
it comes as Mr Trump said on Thursday that he might increase tariffs on imported automobiles in the near future, in a bid to shore up domestic manufacturing.
Mr Trump has imposed 25 percent levies on foreign automobiles, and he said: “I might go up with that tariff in the not too distant future. The higher you go, the more likely it is they build a plant here.”
US auto shares slumped shortly after his remarks.
He also announced the scrapping of California’s landmark mandate to phase out petrol-powered cars in favour of electric vehicles, saying he wanted to save the auto industry from “destruction.”
The move, a rebuke of Democratic climate change policies, comes as the state planned to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035 among other ambitious efforts.
Mr Trump lashed out at California’s bid as “a disaster for this country” and said resolutions he was set to sign will “kill, totally kill” the electric vehicle mandate.
‘NO HARD FEELINGS’: TRUMP ON MUSK FEUD
Donald Trump has said he “could” patch things up with his former billionaire buddy, Elon Musk, but a potential reconciliation isn’t a top priority.
Speaking with New York Post columnist and veteran Australian journalist Miranda Devine on the debut episode of Pod Force One, the US President said he doesn’t “blame” Musk for the blow-up of their alliance, but is “a little disappointed.”
“Look, I have no hard feelings,” President Trump, 78, said during in a wide-ranging interview recorded Monday.
“I was really surprised that that happened. He went after a bill that’s phenomenal. … He just – I think he feels very badly that he said that, actually.”
“I was disappointed in him, but, you know, it is what it is,” Mr Trump admitted after Ms Devine remarked that Mr Musk seemed to treat the president “a bit like a father.”
“That happens. Things like that happen. I don’t blame him for anything. I was a little disappointed.”
Mr Trump seemed even more ready to bury the hatchet by early Thursday AEST.
The Post briefly spoke to Mr Trump a second time on the matter in the wake of Mr Musk’s apology where he admitted he had gone “too far” in his personal attacks on the commander-in-chief.
“I thought it was very nice that he did that,” the president told The Post in a brief phone conversation.
MUSK SAYS SORRY
The world’s richest person said he regretted some of his recent criticisms of the US president, after the pair’s public falling-out last week.
“I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X on Wednesday.
Musk’s expression of regret came just days after Trump threatened the tech billionaire with “serious consequences” if he sought to punish Republicans who vote for a controversial spending bill.
Some politicians who were against the bill had called on Musk – one of the Republican Party’s biggest financial backers in last year’s presidential election – to fund primary challenges against Republicans who voted for the legislation.
“He’ll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that,” Trump, who also branded Musk “disrespectful,” told NBC News on Saturday, without specifying what those consequences would be
But after the tech mogul signalled that his white-hot public feud with the President may be starting to cool off, Trump told reporters at the White House in a clip reposted by X influencer ALX: “We had a great relationship and I wish him well – very well, actually.”
Musk responded by posting a heart emoji, signalling that the former “First Buddy” may no longer have hard feelings.
‘SOUNDS ABOUT WHITE’: TRUMP ORDER SHOCKS AMERICA
President Donald Trump announced that he will restore the names of Fort Robert E. Lee and six other military bases that formerly honoured Confederate war leaders.
“For a little breaking news, we are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett [in Virginia], Fort Hood [in Texas], Fort Gordon [in Georgia], Fort Rucker [in Alabama], Fort Polk [in Louisiana], Fort A.P. Hill [in Virginia] and Fort Robert E. Lee [also in Virginia],” Mr Trump said in a speech at Fort Bragg in North Carolina marking the US Army’s 250th anniversary, The New York Post reports.
“We won a lot of battles out of those forts. It’s no time to change. And I’m superstitious, you know, I like to keep it going, right? I’m very superstitious,” Mr Trump said.
“We want to keep it going. So that’s a big story.”
The base that hosted Mr Trump was itself recently renamed – though in that case, the Army in February restored its original moniker to honour World War II paratrooper and Silver Star recipient Roland Bragg rather than Confederate general Braxton Bragg.
Former President Joe Biden renamed the bases honouring the Confederates in 2023 – with Bragg, the nation’s largest base, briefly known as Fort Liberty instead. Biden initiated the renaming process in 2021 – in the wake of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests the prior year – by signing a bill that created a commission and a three-year timetable to drop tributes to men who led the slave states’ revolt between 1861 and 1865.
It’s unclear whether Trump requires fresh legal authority to restore the names – particularly those of Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee, which he implied would not be rechristened in honour of someone of the same surname.
The announcement left Americans shocked.
“This isn’t about honouring military heroes. It’s about resurrecting a whitewashed version of America where traitors are celebrated and equality is a threat,” wrote an X user.
Another X user said: “Now, why would he feel the need to do that? This is a legitimate question and I hope someone out there in the cult can answer it”, alluding to the KKK.
A third X user agreed: “Sounds about white”.
MIGRATION LEADS TO ‘CHAOS, DYSFUNCTION’
In a hard line speech at Fort Bragg, Mr Trump described LA immigration protesters as “animals” and got troops to boo the names of California Governor Gavin Newsom and ex-president Joe Biden.
Mr Trump linked the protesters to what he called “uncontrolled migration” and said that Europe – which his administration has repeatedly berated on the subject – must act too.
“As the entire world can now see, uncontrolled migration leads to chaos, dysfunction and disorder,” Mr Trump said.
“And you know what? They have it in Europe too. It’s happening in many of the countries of Europe. They better do something before it’s too late.”
Mr Trump’s speech at Fort Bragg is also sending a message about what his new Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth calls a new, “woke-free” military.
Before introducing the “commander-in-chief” to the stage Mr Hegseth said the administration was not interested in “your woke garbage and your political correctness” and it would restore the “warrior ethos back to basics”.
WWII appears to have been increasingly on Mr Trump’s mind since returning to office.
He recently designated May 8 “Victory Day,” noting that, unlike much of Europe, the United States had no day to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany – and he has repeatedly downplayed the role of US allies in the war.
“You would be speaking German right now, okay? We won the war, and you might be speaking Japanese too,” Mr Trump told a reporter in the Oval Office on Tuesday, and again in his speech.
Critics say that Mr Trump’s military fascination underscores an authoritarian streak.
Mr Trump has leaned into the strongman imagery of deploying 700 Marines as well as 4000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to deal with protests.
Mr Trump also used his Fort Bragg speech as an opportunity to tout his massive increase in defence budget.
The US military is the greatest in the world, he said, “and I rebuilt it. I gave you so much money it was crazy.”
WORLD BANK ISSUE DIRE FORECAST AFTER TRUMP TARIFFS TUMULT
The World Bank has slashed its 2025 global growth forecast, citing trade tensions and resulting policy uncertainty, as President Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs strained ties and weighed on economic outlooks.
The bank lowered its projection for global GDP growth to 2.3 per cent in its latest economic prospects report, down from 2.7 per cent expected in January, the latest in a series of downgrades by international organisations.
“That’s the weakest performance in 17 years, outside of outright global recessions,” said World Bank Group chief economist Indermit Gill.
Global growth and inflation prospects for this year and next have worsened because of “high levels of policy uncertainty and this growing fragmentation of trade relations,” he added.
“Without a swift course correction, the harm to living standards could be deep,” Mr Gill warned.
By 2027, the World Bank expects global GDP growth to average 2.5 per cent in the 2020s, which would be the slowest rate in any decade since the 1960s.
The gloomier projections come after Mr Trump imposed a 10 per cent tariff on imports from almost all US trading partners in April – and higher rates on dozens of these economies, which he has since suspended until early July.
He also engaged in tit-for-tat escalation with China, although both countries have hit pause on their trade war and temporarily lowered these staggering duties. But a lasting truce remains uncertain.
The US economy is expected to grow by 1.4 per cent this year, a sharp slowdown for the world’s biggest economy from a 2.8 per cent expansion in 2024.
If US tariffs on imports rose another 10 percentage points, triggering proportional retaliation, the shock to international trade and financial markets could cut world growth by 0.5 percentage points this year, the report added.
By 2027, while the per capita GDP of high-income economies will be approximately where it was in pre-pandemic forecasts, corresponding levels for developing economies would be six per cent lower.
CHINA-US TALKS BEGIN IN LONDON
China and the United States began a new round of trade talks in London on Monday, Beijing’s state media reported, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to shore up a shaky truce after bruising tit-for-tat tariffs.
The two sides are meeting in the historic Lancaster House, run by the UK Foreign Office, following a first round of talks in Geneva last month.
Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng was again heading the team in London. Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported the start of the talks.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer are leading the US delegation, President Donald Trump said.
“The meeting should go very well,” Mr Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News: “We want China and the United States to continue moving forward with the agreement that was struck in Geneva.”
While the UK government reiterated that it was not involved in the discussions, a spokesperson said: “We are a nation that champions free trade.”
UK authorities “have always been clear that a trade war is in nobody’s interests, so we welcome these talks”, the spokesperson added.
The talks in London come just a few days after Mr Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping finally held their first publicly announced telephone talks since the Republican returned to the White House.
Mr Trump said the call reached a “very positive conclusion”, while Xi was quoted by Xinhua as saying “correcting the course of the big ship of Sino-US relations requires us to steer well and set the direction”.
Tensions between the two nations have soared, with President Trump accusing Beijing of violating a tariff de-escalation deal reached in Geneva in mid-May.
“We need China to comply with their side of the deal. And so that’s what the trade team will be discussing tomorrow,” Ms Leavitt said on Sunday.
A key issue will be Beijing’s shipments of rare earths – crucial to a range of goods including electric vehicle batteries and which have been a bone of contention for some time.
“Rare earth shipments from China to the US have slowed since President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs in April,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at trading group XTB.
“The US wants these shipments to be reinstated, while China wants the US to rethink immigration curbs on students, restrictions on access to advanced technology including microchips, and to make it easier for Chinese tech providers to access US consumers,” she added.
– with AFP
More Coverage
Originally published as Donald Trump says Israel could strike Iran, which would “blow” America’s imminent nuclear deal
Join the conversation
High stakes for star Aussie horse trainer as King awaits
Henry Dwyer’s mare Asfoora has made a 32-hour journey to get to one of the world’s most elite races where a special honour awaits the winner.
Read more
Wellness influencers among dead on doomed flight
A wellness influencer couple, an award-winning hotel manager and a family of three are among the 240 dead on the Air India flight which crashed moments after takeoff.
Read more