
Macron says trade war among NATO partners 'makes no sense'
25 June 2025 16:47
THE HAGUE (AFP)French President Emmanuel Macron called Wednesday for a swift agreement to resolve the tariffs standoff between the EU and the United States, saying a trade war among NATO partners "makes no sense."
"We can't say to each other, among allies, we need to spend more... and wage trade war against one another, it makes no sense," Macron told reporters at the alliance's summit in The Hague. "We need to reach a deal now."

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Middle East Eye
2 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Macron urges Netanyahu to commit to ceasefire
French President Emmanuel Macron said he had spoken to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday and had reaffirmed to him the importance of both Israel and Iran respecting their recent ceasefire deal. Macron added he had also reaffirmed to Netanyahu the need for a ceasefire deal in Gaza. - Reporting by Reuters

The National
2 hours ago
- The National
What will Trump do next in the Middle East?
The ceasefire between Israel and Iran marks a dramatic culmination of events that have urgently reshaped the geopolitics of the Middle East, leaving many wondering what US President Donald Trump 's next moves might be in the region. His first order of business will be to shore up the fragile truce, which came after the US joined Israel in bombing Iran by striking three nuclear sites at the weekend. Israel also wiped out many of Iran's air defences and hit its senior commanders and officers. Mr Trump on Wednesday said the US and Iran would hold talks next week, raising hopes for a durable peace between Israel and Iran, two rivals that have spent decades waging a rhetorical war that frequently saw Iran strike at Israeli or western interests through an array of proxy groups. 'We may sign an agreement, I don't know,' Mr Trump said at a Nato summit in The Hague. 'The way I look at it, they fought, the war is done." Iran, however, insists it will retain its nuclear programme and appears set to halt co-operation with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, highlighted the unpredictability of Iran's actions and how these might shape the Trump administration's Middle East policies. He said Mr Trump has made a strategic bet that military force will shock the Iranians and force them into making the concessions he wants. "He might be right, he might be wrong. Last time he took a strategic bet like this, in 2018 when he pulled out of the [2015 nuclear deal ], his gamble didn't work out, and Iran enriched more and more. In fact, it started acting [more aggressively] in the region," Mr Vatanka told The National. Before this month's war between Israel and Iran, the Trump administration had been working on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The Israel-Iran ceasefire will now help that deal come to fruition and secure the release of hostages in Gaza, Mr Trump said on Wednesday, amid reports that talks had picked up pace in Egypt. "It helped a little and showed a lot of power … we were very close to making a deal in Gaza … I think this helped, yes," he said. Iran's nuclear capabilities and its "malign activities", including the funding of proxy groups, have dominated foreign policy conversations and think tank research in Washington for decades. The apparent end of Iran's nuclear programme and the erosion of groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas leaves an opening for the US to focus more on what it wants from the Middle East, namely investment and trade deals and an expansion of the Abraham Accords, as shown by the US President's trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE last month. "If Trump can do that, then you can see a region emerging where the focus is on economic development integration, where non-state actors backed by Iran are sidelined," Mr Vatanka said. He said Arab states could gain more leeway to try to persuade the transactional Mr Trump to begin to support a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some Iran watchers have warned that Tehran is unlikely to move quietly into peaceful coexistence with Israel and is going to accelerate its nuclear programme to develop a bomb. "But racing to the bomb is not so simple," noted David Makovsky, director of the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "It presupposes that they have the resources and that the world is so distracted that they will let them do that. And I don't see that at this time." Mr Makovsky told The National that some estimates put the total cost of Iran's nuclear programme and sanctions against the regime at about $500 billion. "Not a good investment for the Iranian taxpayer," he said. Experts predict some sort of shift within Iran's ruling power structure, although not necessarily regime change. After the US strikes, Mr Trump on Sunday asked "why wouldn't there be a regime change" in Iran, but on Tuesday he said he opposed such an outcome as it would invite chaos. Enia Krivine, who runs the Foundation for Defence of Democracies' Israel Programme, said Israel and Mr Trump are going to focus on normalisation, in which Arab and other Muslim-majority countries will begin to establish ties with Israel. She also predicted that Mr Trump would use the US air strikes in Iran to push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza. "There's going to be a lot of pressure on Israel to come to some sort of conclusion in Gaza that everyone can live with," Ms Krivine told The National. "There's probably going to be some trade-off for Trump's operation over Iran. He's a very transactional president, for better or worse."


Middle East Eye
4 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Trump doesn't think Iran deal needed after facilities ‘blown up to kingdom come'
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration plans to resume talks with Iran next week, but he doesn't care if a nuclear agreement is signed because Iran's facilities have been 'blown up to kingdom come'. 'We are going to talk to them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement. I don't know…I don't care if I have an agreement or not,' he said. 'The only thing we would be asking for is what we were asking for before…we want no nuclear, but we destroyed the nuclear… it's blown up to kingdom come. I don't care very strongly about it. If we got a document, it wouldn't be bad.' Trump's comments during a Nato summit in the Netherlands come amid conflicting reports about the damage US strikes did to Iran's Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities over the weekend. On Wednesday, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said the country's nuclear facilities had been 'badly damaged' by the American strikes. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters But a day earlier, several US media outlets reported unnamed sources briefed on a battle damage assessment by the Defence Intelligence Agency that claimed the US strikes had only set Iran's programme back a few months. CNN cited one source as saying that some of Iran's centrifuges were 'intact'. Trump confirmed the leak was legitimate, but accused American media outlets of misrepresenting the assessment. 'The document said 'it could be limited or it could be very severe [damage]'… and you didn't choose to put that,' he said, addressing a CNN reporter. CNN was the first to report the leak. Trump said the US received more intelligence about the damage after the report, including by speaking with sources on the ground in Iran with access to Iran's nuclear programme. What the Israel-Iran-US conflict taught Pakistan Read More » 'We have also spoken to people who have seen the site. The site is obliterated. Everything nuclear is down there. They didn't take it out,' he said. Trump was likely referring to reports that Iran was able to move a stockpile of uranium from sites before the US struck them. An Arab official briefed on the matter previously told Middle East Eye that Iran had received advance warning of the US strikes. Amwaj Media first reported that Tehran was notified before the US attacked. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that just five days into the war, its inspectors lost track of Iran's 409 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. That amount, which could be easily transported in a container by truck, is enough for 10 nuclear warheads if Iran were to pursue weaponisation. Before Israel's attack, Iran and the US were in talks to curb the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Tuesday that his country was willing to return to negotiations over its nuclear programme, according to state media. Since launching strikes on Iran over the weekend, Trump has moved to de-escalate tensions. He thanked Iran on Monday for providing advance notice about its retaliatory strike on the US's al-Udeid military base in Qatar. Trump announced a ceasefire to the war a few hours after the attack. On Tuesday, he lashed out at both Israel and Iran when it appeared to wobble, saying the two foes "have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing'. Speaking at the Nato summit, Trump said both Iran and Israel were 'tired [and] exhausted' and 'satisfied to go home and get out'. He also said he would have no problem with Iran selling its oil to China. The US slapped sanctions on Iran's oil sales to China during the nuclear talks. 'They just had a war. They fought it bravely. They are in the oil business…they are going to need money to put that country back into shape….If they are going to sell oil, they are going to sell oil,' Trump said.