Category Archives: Donald Trump

‘You have to be serious’: Macron criticises Trump’s mixed messages about Nato and Iran

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Speaking in South Korea, the French president defended the transatlantic alliance and called for return to peace

Emmanuel Macron has sharply criticised Donald Trump’s inconsistent and often contradictory pronouncements on the Iran war and Nato, saying if “you want to be serious” it was better not to come out with something different every day.

“There is too much talk … and it’s all over the place,” the French president said on Thursday during a state visit to South Korea. “We all need stability, calm, a return to peace – this isn’t a show!”

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Oil price jumps and markets slide after Trump warning to Iran

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Brent crude rises 8% as US president vows to hit Iran ‘extremely hard’ over coming weeks

Oil prices have soared after Donald Trump vowed in a televised speech to hit Iran “extremely hard” over the coming weeks, knocking hopes of a near-term end to the conflict in the Middle East.

Brent crude prices jumped by as much as 8% on Thursday to $109.74 a barrel, reversing Wednesday’s drop when hopes of a de-escalation in the Iran war pushed the international benchmark below the $100-a-barrel mark at one point.

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‘Not up to standard’: Macron criticises Trump after comments about his marriage

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Anger in France after US president puts on French accent and mocks Macron during private lunch in Washington

Emmanuel Macron has said Donald Trump’s comments about his marriage were “neither elegant nor up to standard” after the US president put on an accent and mocked his French counterpart and his wife during a private lunch in Washington.

Arriving in South Korea on Thursday, Macron made clear his displeasure at Trump’s comments, which appeared briefly in a video on the White House YouTube channel before being removed.

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‘If he’d stayed on the golf course, we’d be in a better place’: experts on Trump’s tariffs, one year on

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Last April, the president unleashed a tidal wave of tariffs on ‘liberation day’. Analysts say the policy has failed, even by the Trump administration’s own terms

Before Donald Trump declared “liberation day” on 2 April 2025 and shocked the world by raising import tariffs on nearly every country the US did business with, he had spent almost three months causing chaos in Washington.

The wholesale slashing of government jobs under Doge (the “department of government efficiency”) and the defunding of US aid agencies had shown White House watchers that the US president was in a hurry to upset institutions he considered profligate or useless.

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Trump claims Iran war ‘nearing completion’ and seeks to justify conflict in prime time address

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Markets sink after president offers little detail on how he intends to wind down conflict over next two to three weeks

Donald Trump used a prime time address to the nation on Wednesday evening to declare the month-long war in Iran a success “nearing completion”, despite a spiraling conflict that has caused economic turmoil across the globe, fractured transatlantic alliances and eroded the president’s approval ratings.

In remarks from the White House, Trump argued that the US’s “little journey” to Iran had nearly accomplished “all of America’s military objectives”, but offered little clarity on how he planned to wind down the conflict over the next “two to three weeks”.

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Reeves criticises Trump for starting Iran war with no ‘clear plan’ to get out of it – as it happened

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This blog is now closed

Starmer says he understands why people are concerned about the cost of living.

He says he has already set out a five-point plan to deal with the crisis.

Just look at what’s happening today. Today your energy bills will be cut because of the action that we took at the budget. And whatever happens in Iran, that price is now fixed until July.

The most effective way we can support the cost of living in Britain is to push for de-escalation in the Middle East, and a reopening of the strait of Hormuz, which is such a vital route for energy.

To that end, we’re exploring each and every diplomatic avenue that is available to us.

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US judge orders Trump to halt $400m White House ballroom project

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US president demolished East Wing of White House last year to make way for 90,000-sq-ft project

A US judge has halted the construction of Donald Trump’s $400m White House ballroom.

The US president demolished the historic East Wing of the White House last year to make way for the project.

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Trump signs order to restrict mail-in ballots in probably unconstitutional move

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President has falsely claimed ‘legendary’ fraud for limiting mail-in ballots and himself voted by mail last week

Donald Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to compile a national voter file and to restrict the use of mail-in ballots, an unprecedented move that is probably unconstitutional.

The executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to compile a list of verified US citizens who can vote in every state. It also directs the United States Postal Service (USPS) to begin rule-making on a process that would require states to notify the agency of voters who intend to receive a mail-in ballot and prohibit them from receiving one unless they are on a USPS-approved list of eligible voters.

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‘God squad’ waives endangered species law to allow US drilling in Gulf of Mexico

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Critics say exemption for fossil fuels exploits White House’s ‘self-made gas crisis’, and could doom the rare Rice’s whale

A US government panel on Tuesday exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a move which critics say could doom a rare whale species and harm other marine life.

The Endangered Species Committee – which had not convened in more than three decades – voted to approve the request for the ESA exemption at the request of the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.

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Middle East crisis live: oil spill warning after tanker attacked in Dubai; explosions in Tehran and Jerusalem amid wave of attacks

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Kuwait says fire broke out after Iranian attack on giant tanker and warns of possible oil spill in surrounding waters

Japan and Indonesia have agreed to step up coordination on energy security, Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi said on Tuesday.

“In light of the Iran situation, the strategic importance of resources and energy security is once again being recognized globally. Indonesia is a major resource-rich nation,” Takaichi said alongside Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto after they met for talks in Tokyo.

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DHS funding freeze now longest partial government shutdown in US history

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If the now six-week partial shutdown continues after the weekend, it will become the longest of any shutdown

The shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the fourth-largest agency in the US government, became the longest partial shutdown in US history on Sunday.

If the now six-week partial shutdown continues after the weekend, it will also become the longest of any shutdown, surpassing the impasse late last year that dragged on for 43 days.

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No Kings protests: millions rally in cities around the world against Trump and his administration – as it happened

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In the year since Donald Trump retook office, the number of protests in the US outpaced those at the same point in his first administration, according to data from the Crowd Counting Consortium, an open-source project collaboration between Harvard University’s Kennedy School and the University of Connecticut, reported Lex McMenamin and Andrew Witherspoon.

There were more than 10,700 protests in 2025, a 133% increase from the 4,588 recorded in 2017, the first year of Trump’s first term. According to the data, an overwhelming majority of US counties – including 42% that voted for Trump – have had at least one protest since he was re-inaugurated last year.

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As US troops sail to Middle East, how likely is Trump to order boots on the ground?

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Secretary of state Marco Rubio repeats administration’s belief that US can achieve its aims without a ground war

Amid tentative White House efforts at diplomacy to end the war in Iran, US troops have also been arriving in the region to deliver what Donald Trump has hoped could be a knockout blow if he can’t negotiate a ceasefire with Tehran.

Thousands of US marines aboard navy amphibious ships from the 31st and 11th expeditionary units have been deployed to the Middle East from Asia. Another 2,000-odd paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne are also being sent to the theatre – they are tasked with deploying worldwide within 18 hours of notification and execute parachute assaults, including against a “defended airfield” to prepare for further ground operations.

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Hundreds of organised protests show resilience of Iranian regime, experts say

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More than 850 public demonstrations of support held since start of war and at least 1,400 arrests, research reveals

Iran’s regime has organised more than 850 public demonstrations of support of the government since the beginning of the war and launched a continuing crackdown on unrest that has led to at least 1,400 detentions, research reveals.

The high number of pro-regime gatherings and the increasing number of detentions underlines the resilience of the Islamic Republic despite a month-long campaign of intensive airstrikes by the US and Israel, experts said.

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‘Break your silence’: Jane Fonda leads rally against Trump crackdown on arts and media

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Actor outside Kennedy Center urges Americans to ‘stand tall against authoritarianism’ and resist free-speech threats

The actor Jane Fonda joined journalists, musicians and writers outside Washington’s John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in urging US citizens to “break your silence” and “stand tall against authoritarianism”.

At a damp but defiant rally hosted by Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment on Friday, around a hundred invited guests gathered to hear speakers and singers rail against book bans, political censorship and other threats to free speech under Donald Trump.

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Flatterers out in force to fill Trump’s head with Venezuelan statue dreams

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President’s popularity top of mind at another weird and wild cabinet meeting – riff on merits of Sharpies included

They have become so notorious for displays of flattery and obsequiousness that critics have drawn comparisons with North Korea. Thursday’s cabinet meeting at the White House was no different.

Doug Burgum, the US interior secretary, outflanked his fellow praise singers by saying he believes that Venezuela – which the US attacked in January – intends to honour the president with a statue.

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Trump describes UK aircraft carriers as ‘toys’ in latest anti-Nato jibe

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US president says he is ‘very disappointed’ as he again lashes out at allies’ lack of involvement in Iran war

Donald Trump has dismissed British warships as “toys” in his latest jibe at Nato countries for their lack of involvement in the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Speaking at the White House on Thursday, he claimed he had told the UK: “Don’t bother, we don’t need it.”

Trump has previously alleged that he requested two aircraft carriers from the UK that Keir Starmer had initially rejected and then offered to send. No 10 has denied that a request was made or denied.

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Trump’s trip to meet Xi Jinping in China rescheduled for May due to Iran war

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US president says he will host Chinese leader in a reciprocal visit later this year

Donald Trump will meet Xi Jinping in May during the US president’s first visit to China in eight years, a closely watched trip that had been postponed due to the Iran war.

Trump was initially slated to travel next week, but will now visit Beijing on 14 and 15 May, he wrote in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday. Trump said he would host the Chinese leader in a reciprocal visit in Washington later this year.

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Iran rejects US ceasefire plan and submits its own amid push for talks

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Tehran puts forward five-point counter-proposal and says war will end when it decides and on its terms

Iran dismissed a US ceasefire proposal on Wednesday and countered with a negotiation plan of its own as intermediaries sought to keep diplomatic channels between the warring countries open.

Iranian state TV quoted an anonymous official as saying Tehran had rejected the plan it had received via Pakistan, saying it would “end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met”, and until then would continue fighting across the region.

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Trump pitches Iran peace plan but military buildups rarely veer to off-ramp

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Tehran skeptical of president’s offer – and troop deployments for potential ground operations – suggest claim of imminent end to war not credible

Somewhere between the strait of Hormuz and the screens of Bloomberg terminals around the world, the standard laws of cause and effect appear to have been suspended for Donald Trump’s war in Iran.

Trump this week soft-launched his latest Iran peace talks – which he has said must be accepted or “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out” – with few details or proof that anyone in the Iranian regime was willing to listen to him. The ultimatum was described as “maximalist” by Iran and quickly derided as a non-starter by analysts and former government officials.

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