Donald Trump has reinstated his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran – as he threatened Tehran it would be “obliterated” if it assassinates him.

The US president signed a memorandum on Tuesday in an effort to crack down on Iran’s nuclear programme and restrict oil exports – moments before he met Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mr Trump said he also signed the “tough” directive on Iran because Tehran was “too close” to having a nuclear weapon.

He added he would hold talks with his counterpart in Tehran, but warned he has left “instructions” for his advisers that if Iran assassinated him, the US foe “would be obliterated”.

The US Justice Department announced in federal charges in November that an Iranian plot to kill Mr Trump before the presidential election had been thwarted.

The department alleged Iranian officials had instructed Farhad Shakeri, 51, to focus on surveilling and ultimately assassinating Mr Trump. Shakeri is still at large in Iran.

It comes as Mr Trump withdrew the US from the UN Human Rights Council in an executive order.

The president has also stopped funding of the UN’s relief agency for Gaza.

The order means Mr Trump has reinstated policies that were in place during his first administration.

Joe Biden’s administration previously paused funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) after reports its staff were involved in the 7 October attacks.

Mr Trump also claimed that Palestinians have “no alternative” but to leave Gaza, but that he doesn’t necessarily support Israelis settling in the enclave.

Trump maximises leverage over Iran by squeezing where it hurts most

Dominic Waghorn

International affairs editor

@DominicWaghorn

Leverage is the most important thing in negotiations, Donald Trump said in his book The Art Of The Deal. “Don’t make deals without it.”

The US president has just maximised his leverage over Iran’s government, squeezing it where it hurts most.

Oil sales. The move will hurt Iran’s economy already in deep trouble and could lead to more social unrest.

But the impact does not stop there. The global price of oil has already jumped on the news.

Read more here

The US president also repeated previous suggestions that he would like to see Jordan and Egypt take Palestinians from Gaza.

“The Gaza thing has never worked,” Trump told reporters.

“If we could find the right piece of land, pieces of land, and build them some really nice places…I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza.”

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Egypt and Jordan, as well other Arab nations, have flatly rejected calls by Trump to relocate the territory’s population during post-war rebuilding of the territory.

The UN estimates that 60% of structures in the enclave have been damaged or destroyed, with almost all of the 2.3 million people in Gaza having been forced to leave their homes during Israel’s 15-month war to take shelter elsewhere in the territory.

Meanwhile, the president said he thinks he will wind down the US Agency for International Development (USAID), in what would be a dramatic overhaul of how the world’s largest single donor allocates foreign assistance.

When a reporter said to Trump it sounded like he was going to “wind down” the agency, Trump chuckled and said “I think so.”

Chaos has consumed the agency, which distributes billions of dollars of humanitarian aid around the world, since Trump
ordered a freeze on most US foreign aid hours after taking office and tasked billionaire Elon Musk, who has falsely accused USAID of being a “criminal” organisation, with scaling down the agency.

Mr Trump also said he would like to close the US Department of Education with executive action.

Leverage is the most important thing in negotiations, Donald Trump said in his book The Art Of The Deal. “Don’t make deals without it.”

The US president has just maximised his leverage over Iran’s government, squeezing it where it hurts most.

Oil sales. The move will hurt Iran’s economy, already in deep trouble, and could lead to more social unrest.

The edict Mr Trump signed on Tuesday marks a return to the maximum pressure policies of his first administration that were relaxed by his successors.

Joe Biden allowed Iran to export more than $50bn of oil a year.

Trump is reversing that. He will target foreign ports and refineries, especially those in China that are currently handling Iranian oil.

Iran may find there is nowhere left for it to sell its oil.

Read more: Trump says Iran will be ‘obliterated’ if it assassinates him

That could be devastating for the ayatollahs and their government. Strapped by crippling sanctions, Iranians desperately need the hard currency receipts generated by oil sales.

But the impact does not stop there. The global price of oil has already jumped on the news.

This spells more trouble for the government in Tehran. Higher fuel prices add to the pain of Iran’s poor. That increases the chances of social unrest.

Protests led by Iranian women following the death of a Mahsa Amini more than two years ago were crushed with force but they weakened the government’s standing.

If the rural poor take to the streets, protesting against higher fuel and food prices on top of already crippling inflation, broader and more wide-ranging unrest could ensue.

This all puts Iran’s government in a bind.

President Trump says he wants a deal with Iran. Its people are amazing, he says, and the country has huge potential.

On one condition. It cannot have a nuclear weapon.

Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes but since Mr Trump reneged on the first Iranian nuclear deal it has been enriching uranium to levels that can have no civilian purpose.

Its government is facing a choice. Enter talks with the US from a position of weakness. Or change its nuclear doctrine and accelerate its pursuit of the bomb.

The latter path is fraught with danger. Israeli intelligence has infiltrated and penetrated Iran. It is likely to detect any clandestine dash to go the final mile and produce a nuclear weapon.

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Israel is likely then to attack Iran and Mr Trump has said without a deal the US is likely to support it.

Iran has never been more exposed. Over the last year it has watched its network of allies and proxies done mortal damage by Israel.

In the latest round of fighting between the two countries, Israel is thought to have destroyed much of Iran’s air defences. But it has other means of self-defence.

Not least attacking neighbours across the gulf and their vulnerable energy infrastructure. That raises the spectre once more of an escalating war across the Middle East.

Iran’s diplomats are sounding defiant. Attacking its nuclear facilities would be “crazy“, its foreign minister Abbas Aragchi told Sky News last month. It would lead, he said, to a “very bad disaster” for the region.

Iran’s leaders are in a tight spot. Mr Trump seems determined to increase their pain. He hopes that could increase the chances of a deal on his terms.

Others fear it makes a devastating regional conflict more likely. The repercussions of a conflict across the Persian Gulf would be felt around the world.

The US will take over Gaza and “own it”, Donald Trump has said.

Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, he said the two million Palestinian people living in the territory, which he described as a “demolition site”, would go to “various domains”.

Asked about deploying US troops to fill a potential security vacuum, the president replied: “We’ll do what is necessary.”

Expanding on plans for the territory, he said the US would “develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs” and turn it into “something the entire Middle East can be very proud of”.

The president reiterated his suggestion from 25 January that Palestinians could be relocated to Egypt and Jordan – something both countries, other Arab nations including Saudi Arabia, and Palestinian leaders, have rejected.

Palestinians in Gaza could go to countries beyond Jordan and Egypt too, he said.

Asked whether he thought Egypt and Jordan would accept Palestinians, he said he believed they would.

But, he added: “I hope we could do something where they wouldn’t want to go back. Who would want to go back?

“They’ve experienced nothing but death and destruction.”

Saudi Arabia immediately responded, stressing its rejection of attempts to displace Palestinians from Gaza, and insisted it would not establish relations with Israel without a Palestinian state.

Asked on what authority the US could take control of Gaza, Mr Trump told reporters he sees a “long term ownership position” which would, he claimed, bring stability to that part of the Middle East.

“This was not a decision made lightly,” he said.

“Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs.”

It would be the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

He continued: “I’ve studied it. I’ve studied this very closely over a lot of months, and I’ve seen it from every different angle.”

He does not believe Palestinians should return to Gaza because it is a “guarantee that they’re going to end up dying”.

He talked about finding a “beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza”.

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The war, triggered by Hamas carrying out a massacre of 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage during the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel, has temporarily stopped since the long-sought ceasefire deal came into effect on 19 January.

More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Hamas’s attack, according to local authorities.

Mr Netanyahu, the first world leader to meet Mr Trump since the pro-Israel president’s return to the White House, sat beside the Republican as he answered questions from the press.

‘Plans change with time’

The US president hinted he would seek an independent Palestinian state as part of a broader two-state solution to the decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict.

“Well, a lot of plans change with time,” he told reporters when he was asked if he was still committed to a plan similar to the one he spelled out in 2020 that described a possible Palestinian state.

That plan proposed a series of Palestinian enclaves surrounded by an enlarged Israel, did not have the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, but suggested a Palestinian capital on the outskirts of the city.

“A lot of death has occurred since I left and now came back. Now we are faced with a situation that’s different – in some ways better and in some ways worse. But we are faced with a very complex and difficult situation that we’ll solve,” he said.

On the likelihood of getting a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, Mr Trump said: “We are dealing with a lot of people, and we have steps to go yet, as you know, and maybe those steps go forward, and maybe they don’t.

“We’re dealing with a very complex group of people, situation and people, but we have the right man. We have the right leader of Israel. He’s done a great job.”

Mr Trump was also asked whether he should get the Nobel Peace Prize.

He said: “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”