Trump | Pakistan

US President Donald Trump lashed out at “fake news media” and talked about serving a banned third term as he addressed a rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Friday, three months after an assassination attempt disrupted the event. “This place is really the largest group of Trump derangement syndrome people ever put together at one time,” Trump told the media gala at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington, DC. The 80-year-old started with a relatively conciliatory tone, reflecting on the attack by a gunman that forced him to be evacuated from the dinner in April. “The show must go on,” Trump said. But he quickly pivoted to attacking a wide range of perceived enemies in an often rambling speech, starting with journalists before training his fire on Democratic opponents. Trump had earlier thrown up his hands and laughed as he shook hands with a Wall Street Journal team that broke stories on his ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. But he later joked that “this has not been an easy evening, ...

Trump links KSA N-deal to Abraham Accords

US President Donald Trump on Thursday said a landmark deal with Saudi Arabia that would establish a civilian nuclear programme in the Gulf country is contingent on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords and normalising ties with Israel. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the deal only pertained to the civilian use of nuclear facilities “such as the ones that Iran and [the] UAE (and others) already have”. He added that the deal “will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords”. The Abraham Accords are a set of agreements brokered under Trump in 2020 and govern the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and countries that have historically been hostile to it. They, however, remain unpopular among the public in many parts of the region, not least because they do not tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The move comes as the United States under President Donald Trump fights a war with Iran that began in large part over concerns wi...

US President Donald Trump on Monday vowed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not face arrest at a UN summit in New York, after the city’s new mayor said he was investigating the move. Mayor Zohran Mamdani admitted he was unsure if he had the power to order police to detain a foreign leader but said he was discussing the matter with his legal team ahead of the UN General Assembly in September. “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” Trump said on social media. “He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The Hague-based International Criminal Court said in 2024 that it had reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu was responsible for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Israel’s offensive in Gaza following the brutal October 7, 2023 cross-border attack by Hamas. “I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani told the New York Times on Saturday, referring to the United Na...

United States President Donald Trump on Thursday revived sweeping and unsupported claims of voter fraud and Chinese meddling — firing a clear warning shot ahead of midterm elections that many expect him to dispute. In a primetime White House address, Trump portrayed the US electoral system as dangerously exposed and urged lawmakers to adopt new restrictions on voting, despite scant appetite for the measures even within his own Republican Party. “We can never watch a stolen election again,” Trump said, referring to his 2020 defeat by Democrat Joe Biden. Trump said he was declassifying intelligence that showed, among other things, that China had illicitly acquired 220 million US voter files. “Over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history,” he said from the White House. Trump also claimed that more than 250,000 non-US citizens were registered to vote in four states. He then atta...

The recovery plan for war-battered Gaza, under US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace (BoP), has been significantly scaled back and, instead of reconstructing the entire territory, now envisions a small pilot project in the south of the besieged territory, the British publication The Guardian reported on Thursday. The board was initially proposed in September 2025 and formally established in January. Under its charter, the US government serves as its official depository and Trump has designated the Donald J Trump Institute of Peace in Washington as the Board’s headquarters. A UN Security Council resolution adopted in mid-November last year authorised the board, along with cooperating states, to establish an international stabilisation force in Gaza following a ceasefire that began in October under a Trump-backed plan accepted by Israel and Hamas. According to the publication, the new pilot project now aims to construct a small temporary camp for a fraction of Gaza’s population, with a Palestinian administ...

White House says Trump will attend World Cup final, calling it the most watched and secure in US history

White House spokesperson denies Trump has ever used public office for financial gain

US President Donald Trump stepped back from a proposal to charge a 20 per cent transit fee to guard the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway as part of the conflict with Iran, saying on Tuesday he would instead seek investment deals with Gulf states. US forces had carried out waves of attacks for the third night in a row after Tehran said it had closed the strait, prompting Trump on Monday to reinstate a blockade of Iranian shipping and propose the fee. But just a little under five hours before the fee had been due to come into effect at 2000 GMT, Trump said the strait was open to all shipping traffic except that of Iran. “Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States,” he said in a post on Truth Social. Iran reports new strikes, sirens in Kuwait The governor’s office of Iran’s Qeshm Island, on the Strait of Hormuz, said it was ...

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump faces questions about the security of his new Air Force One plane gifted by Qatar, after he took an older jet home from a Nato summit this week. The billionaire president has barely been able to contain his excitement over the retrofitted Boeing 747-8 aircraft, which took him to Ankara on its maiden trip outside the United States. But then Trump abruptly announced in Turkiye that he was sending the luxury plane on ahead to a British airbase — saying it was so US troops could tour the plane donated by the Qatari royal family. The New York Times reported on Friday that the new plane lacked the same security countermeasures boasted by the older jet, including anti-missile defences. US media also reported that the Secret Service had advised the switch. Speculation was fuelled by the fact that US hostilities had flared again with Iran, which borders Turkiye, and because journalists on the old plane out of Ankara were also told to keep their window blinds down, a step normally ...

United States President Donald Trump unexpectedly left Turkiye on Wednesday aboard an older Air Force One rather than the newly renovated Qatari-donated jet that brought him there, but later boarded the new plane in Britain for the flight to Washington. The trip to Turkiye for the Nato summit, the first international travel for the new plane, took place as hostilities escalated with Iran, a country that borders Turkiye. The unexpected plane switch followed months of scrutiny over the luxury gift intended to serve as a temporary replacement while Boeing struggled to deliver long-delayed next-generation Air Force One planes. Critics questioned the cost, security and pace of the retrofit. Trump said on Truth Social that he would use an older baby blue Air Force One plane “for old time’s sake” to fly from Ankara to RAF Mildenhall in Britain while the new plane stopped at the same base so US service members stationed there could tour the aircraft. Video late on Wednesday showed Trump boarding the new Air Force One...

President Donald Trump said the United States would hit Iran “hard” on Wednesday as he deemed their ceasefire over after fighting flared, but he left the door open to more talks. Efforts to end the Middle East war have taken a hit following the fighting sparked by Iranian attacks on ships in the vital Strait of Hormuz. The strategic shipping route remains a flashpoint in the conflict, which began in late February with massive US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Tehran insists on controlling the waterway, saying it will charge fees for passage and threatening to hit vessels that deviate from its authorised route. Its military struck at least three ships in recent days, prompting extensive US strikes against Iranian targets on Tuesday followed by retaliatory attacks from Iran on Gulf countries. “We’re gonna hit ’em hard tonight,” Trump said at a Nato summit in Ankara in reference to Iran, adding: “They violate the agreement every day.” When asked if the truce was intact, he had said earlier on Wednesday that “as far as...

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would lift sanctions on Turkiye and make a decision on a potential sale of F-35 stealth jets to Ankara, as Nato leaders unveiled arms deals worth tens of billions of dollars to drive home the message that they are heeding US calls to spend more to defend Europe. Leaders were convening for a summit in the capital Ankara, hoping to project unity after another bruising year, in which the Iran war once again exposed cracks in the alliance that has underpinned Western security since the end of World War Two. In a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump announced, “We’re going to be taking the sanctions off,” referring to the measures imposed under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). In 2020, Washington imposed CAATSA sanctions on Turkiye over its acquisition of Russian S-400 air defence systems. It also removed Ankara from the F-35 fighter jet program, a move Turkiye called unjust and illegal. Trump was expected to thr...

Italy will not respond further to US President Donald Trump’s attacks on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, ministers said, pledging to protect bilateral ties that have come under strain in recent weeks after the two leaders traded accusations. Meloni was once seen as a close ally of Trump, but the relationship faltered last month when he told Italian TV channel La7 that she had “begged” him to take a photo with her at a G7 summit in France. She denied the claim and accused him of fabricating the story. With the two leaders due to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit in Ankara on Tuesday and Wednesday, Trump appeared to reignite the dispute when he posted on Truth Social a picture of Meloni looking up at him with the caption “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED”. US President Donald Trump shared a doctored picture with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on July 6, 2026. —Truth Social/@realDonaldTrump The latest provocation raised questions about how Meloni would react, potentially raising tensions ...

NATO unveils billions of dollars in arms deals in Turkiye ahead of Trump summit and defence spending talks

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he asked FIFA President Gianni Infantino to review a red-card foul against USA striker Folarin Balogun and that he did not think the foul, called by the “horrible” referee, was fair. “All I did, I asked for a review, because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. The unprecedented move has thrust FIFA’s disciplinary process into the global spotlight and prompted an angry response from Belgium, who play the US on Monday for a place in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. Trump said the incident that got Balogun the red card was simply a case of two athletes colliding and he raised questions about the fairness of the referee who called the foul. “I saw the play,” Trump said. “That wasn’t a foul. That wasn’t even an infraction. That was two guys running whole speed that happened to crash into each other. “These were two great athletes that got tangled up, and this referee, who, is a little bit suspect if you check his past … very susp...

US President Donald Trump’s visit to Ankara for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) summit could help secure Turkiye’s acquisition of dozens of fighter jet engines, but won’t resolve the F-35 dispute that has soured ties, analysts say. The July 7-8 summit, which is being hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will bring together leaders from the military alliance’s 32 member states. Last month, Trump promised to make Erdogan “very happy” when asked about Turkiye looking to secure F110 jet engines and being readmitted to the F-35 fighter jet programme. Analysts said it would likely mean freeing up fighter jet engines Turkiye wants to use in its flagship KAAN stealth fighter project. “It’s likely to be the green light for the F110 GE engines for the KAAN fighter plane, about 40 of them. There had been obstacles to that supply and very possibly those are now being removed,” Sinan Ulgen, director of the Istanbul-based Edam think tank, told AFP. “Turkey has produced a couple of prototypes which are fl...

United States President Donald Trump hailed America on its 250th birthday on Saturday as the “crowning achievement” of human history, even as he used the event to renew his attack on domestic opponents he branded communists. In a speech delayed by several hours when storms forced the temporary evacuation of crowds in Washington, Trump claimed that under his presidency the United States was “prouder than ever before”. While Trump had promised a huge political rally to stamp his brand on the national celebrations, the 80-year-old Republican largely stuck to a more traditionally patriotic script. “For two and a half centuries, our American republic has stood as the crowning achievement of human history,” Trump told tens of thousands of people on the National Mall. On stage, he hailed also veterans from World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars. But he then hailed the latter two as examples of the battle against “communists” — reprising his message from his speech on Friday night at the iconic Mount Rushmore m...

United States President Donald Trump lashed out on Friday at what he called a fresh threat against the country’s identity, taking aim at domestic “radicals and extremists” on the eve of America’s 250th birthday. In a speech dripping with patriotism, Trump lauded American exceptionalism and praised its past leaders, speaking at Mount Rushmore with its giant carved heads of four of his legendary predecessors. But he added at the foot of the iconic monument: “As we approach this magnificent anniversary, we see our American identity under a renewed attack.” He charged that there was “a resurgence of the communist menace in our land”. It is a theme that Trump has repeatedly hammered home in recent weeks, as the anti-establishment left of the Democratic Party carried a surge of US primary victories. The president has cast the rise of the left ahead of November’s midterm elections that “communists” are on the rampage, posing a major “threat” to the country. ‘Undeniable attempt’ Trump said on Friday: “In recent years...

President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States is “getting along well” with Iran, as the two countries began indirect talks via mediators in Doha on Wednesday, in a bid to advance negotiations and ease tensions following exchanges of fire between the two sides. “The denuclearisation of Iran is moving along well,” Trump told reporters before leaving for a trip. “They’ve had very good meetings, and we’ll see.” He added that Tehran had “come a long way” in negotiations with Washington. “We hit them very hard last week. I think they’re fine,” he said. “It’s the denuclearisation of Iran, it’s very simple, and Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.” Both the US and Iran said they would send officials to discuss the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at ending the Middle East war, but Iran insisted direct negotiations would not take place. A diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, confirmed negotiations were underway, after earlier saying the foes woul...