Made in the US? Trump's MAGA phone is just another phoney deal
The Trump family says it's going to launch a mobile phone service with phones 'proudly designed and built in the United States'. Really? Not really.
For a start, the statement in the press release claiming that the new 'sleek, gold smartphone' will be manufactured in the US is false.
While a spokesman for the Trump Organisation told The Wall Street Journal that the phones would be manufactured in Alabama, California and Florida, Eric Trump admitted to a podcaster that, at least initially, the phones – supposed to be available from August – would be made offshore.
'Eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America,' he said. 'Eventually' could involve a very long wait.
While the Trumps described 'T1 Mobile' as a 'transformational, new cellular service designed to deliver top-tier connectivity, unbeatable value and all-American service for our nation's hardest-working people,' what's on offer appears to be an expensive re-badging of another company's offering.
It's a licensing deal. The Trumps aren't building anything. They're selling the Trump brand, as usual, to a third party that will create a virtual network by accessing the actual mobile networks operated by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.
Are they at least offering the unbeatable value their announcement proclaimed? It appears not.
The plan, as described, is $US499 ($766) for the phone plus $US45.47 a month (Trump is both the 45th and US 47th president, how clever!) for unlimited talk and text and 20GB of high-speed internet, access to telehealth services and roadside assistance.
Leaving aside the service offerings because it's unclear whether they carry additional costs – the company that will provide the telehealth service charges a minimum of $US29 a month – the Trump Mobile plan costs more than twice that of similar plans offered by the companies whose networks will deliver the services.
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Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Israel-Iran conflict LIVE updates: Huge queues out of Tehran as Trump says ‘everyone should immediately evacuate' after leaving G7 summit early
Go to latest The headlines so far Here's the latest from the Middle East and the G7 summit: US President Donald Trump is leaving the G7 summit in Canada a day earlier than planned and will not meet with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. A spokesperson for the prime minister said given the unfolding conflict in the Middle East, Trump's decision was understandable. Trump is trying to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran – and reports say he is trying to use the US's stockpile of bunker-busting munitions as leverage to force Iran to the negotiating table. Trump said on social media that people should immediately evacuate the Iranian capital, Tehran. In Iran, state media says more than 224 Iranians have been killed, most of them civilians. Separately, Washington-based Iranian advocacy group Human Rights Activists reports that 406 people have been killed, including 197 civilians. In Israel, the death toll is 24, all civilians. You can catch up with everything we know at our regularly updated 'What we know so far' page. 3.33pm Trump says he's not working on a cease-fire, bags France's Macron By Michael Koziol Calgary: Minutes before Air Force One will take off from Calgary to take Donald Trump home, the US President has taken a dig at French President Emmanuel Macron on social media. 'Publicity seeking President Emmanuel Macron, of France, mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a 'cease fire' between Israel and Iran,' he posted on TruthSocial. 'Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that. Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!' That represents a major about-face. Only hours earlier President Macron told global media President Trump was working to forge a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. 'There is indeed an offer to meet and exchange. An offer was made especially to get a ceasefire and to then kick-start broader discussions,' Macron said at the G7, according to Reuters. 'We have to see now whether the sides will follow.' It comes as the New York Times reports Trump initially refused to sign a statement from the G7 leaders on the conflict - which condemned Iran as the 'principal source of regional instability and terror' and upheld Israel's right to defend itself - until draft wording was adjusted. 3.18pm Gold prices rise as Trump's Tehran warning sparks haven buying By Cindy Yin Gold pushed higher in early trading after US President Donald Trump called for the immediate evacuation of Tehran, boosting demand for havens as investors track hostilities between Israel and Iran. Bullion rose as much as 0.4 per cent to top US$3400 an ounce, following a 1.4 per cent slide on Monday, which was the biggest daily decline in a month. Trump issued the call to empty the Iranian capital in a TruthSocial post hours after he urged Iran's leadership to sign a deal to limit its nuclear program. The precious metal advanced by almost 4 per cent last week as Israel opened its military campaign against Iran's nuclear program, sparking fears of a region-wide conflict and adding fresh impetus to a rally driven by the threat to global economic growth from Trump's aggressive tariff agenda. 3.01pm Three dead in attack on Iranian television broadcaster By Liam Mannix Fars News Agency, which is operated by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, say three staff members were killed in Israel's earlier attack on the state television building. The channel's cameras captured the attack live on air, with dust falling from the shaking ceiling. 2.55pm Iran's bombardment of Israel falters By Liam Mannix Just a handful of ballistic missiles were launched by Iran overnight, according to a report from the Times of Israel. It said less than 10 missiles were launched at northern and central Israel. No injuries have been reported. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Tehran is keen to de-escalate the war and return to the negotiating table over its nuclear program. 2.48pm Hegseth heads to Situation Room By AP US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is headed to the White House Situation Room to meet with President Donald Trump and his national security team amid tensions in the Middle East. This comes as the US has repositioned warships and military aircraft in the region to respond if the conflict between Israel and Iran further escalates. Hegseth didn't provide details on what prompted the meeting but said on Fox News late on Monday (US time) that the movements were to 'ensure that our people are safe'. Hegseth's chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, tweeted that 'American Forces are maintaining their defensive posture'. The US has helped Israel shoot down Iranian missiles. 2.41pm Huge queues as civilians flee Tehran: social media report By Liam Mannix Video posted to social media appears to show huge queues at petrol stations and on highways as civilians flee Tehran. The videos have not yet been independently verified. But both the Israeli military and US President Donald Trump have been urging civilians to flee. 'Iran should have signed the 'deal' I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!' Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Monday. 2.14pm Iran the 'principal source of regional instability and terror': G7 leaders By Cindy Yin G7 leaders have released a statement describing Iran as the 'principal source of regional instability and terror', and also reaffirmed Israel's right to defend itself. Here is the statement in full: 'We, the leaders of the G7, reiterate our commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East. In this context, we affirm that Israel has a right to defend itself. 'We reiterate our support for the security of Israel. We also affirm the importance of the protection of civilians. Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror. 'We have been consistently clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. We urge that the resolution of the Iranian crisis leads to a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza. We will remain vigilant to the implications for international energy markets and stand ready to co-ordinate, including with like-minded partners, to safeguard market stability.' The New York Times reported US President Donald Trump - who left the summit early - nearly declined to sign the statement, but changed his mind after the draft text was revised. 1.54pm The headlines so far By Liam Mannix and Angus Delaney Here's the latest from the Middle East and the G7 summit: US President Donald Trump is leaving the G7 summit in Canada a day earlier than planned and will not meet with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. A spokesperson for the prime minister said given the unfolding conflict in the Middle East, Trump's decision was understandable. Trump is trying to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran – and reports say he is trying to use the US's stockpile of bunker-busting munitions as leverage to force Iran to the negotiating table. Trump said on social media that people should immediately evacuate the Iranian capital, Tehran. In Iran, state media says more than 224 Iranians have been killed, most of them civilians. Separately, Washington-based Iranian advocacy group Human Rights Activists reports that 406 people have been killed, including 197 civilians. In Israel, the death toll is 24, all civilians. You can catch up with everything we know at our regularly updated 'What we know so far' page. 1.47pm China warns of 'potentially catastrophic consequences' of conflict, calls for peace By Cindy Yin China has warned that the Iran-Israel conflict may lead to wider instability in the Middle East. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi communicated with both countries as the days-old conflict showed no sign of ending. 'If the conflict between Israel and Iran continues to escalate or even spill over, the other countries in the Middle East will inevitably bear the brunt,' Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said in a briefing on Monday. 'China will continue to maintain communication with relevant parties and promote talks for peace so as to prevent more turmoil in the region.' The comments follow China's earlier condemnation of Israel's attack on Iran. China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that the nation 'explicitly condemns Israel's violation of Iran's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity', and 'firmly opposes the reckless attacks targeting Iranian officials and causing civilian casualties'.
West Australian
2 hours ago
- West Australian
Donald Trump's Iran choice: Last-chance diplomacy or a bunker-busting bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump is weighing a critical decision in the days-old war between Israel and Iran: whether to enter the fray by helping Israel destroy the deeply buried nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo, which only America's biggest 'bunker buster,' dropped by US B-2 bombers, can reach. If he decides to go ahead, the United States will become a direct participant in a new conflict in the Middle East, taking on Iran in exactly the kind of war Mr Trump has sworn, in two campaigns, he would avoid. Iranian officials have warned that US participation in an attack on its facilities will imperil any remaining chance of the nuclear disarmament deal that Mr Trump insists he is still interested in pursuing. Mr Trump has encouraged Vice President JD Vance and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to offer to meet the Iranians this week, according to a US official. The offer may be well received, and Mr Trump said Monday that 'I think Iran basically is at the negotiating table, they want to make a deal.' The urgency appeared to be rising. The White House announced late Monday that Mr Trump was leaving the Group of 7 summit early because of the situation in the Middle East. 'As soon as I leave here, we're going to be doing something,' Mr Trump said. 'But I have to leave here.' What he intended to do remained unclear. If Mr Vance and Mr Witkoff did meet with the Iranians, officials say, the likely Iranian interlocutor would be the country's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, who played a key role in the 2015 nuclear deal with the Obama Administration and knows every element of Iran's sprawling nuclear complex. Mr Araghchi, who has been Mr Witkoff's counterpart in recent negotiations, signalled his openness to a deal Monday, saying in a statement, 'If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential.' 'It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu,' he said, referring to the Israeli Prime Minister. 'That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.' But if that diplomatic effort fizzles, or the Iranians remain unwilling to give in to Mr Trump's central demand that they must ultimately end all uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, the President will still have the option of ordering that Fordo and other nuclear facilities be destroyed. There is only one weapon for the job, experts contend. It is called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or the GBU-57, and it weighs so much — 30,000 pounds — that it can be lifted only by a B-2 bomber. Israel does not own either the weapon or the bomber needed to get it aloft and over a target. If Mr Trump holds back, it could well mean that Israel's main objective in the war is never completed. 'Fordo has always been the crux of this thing,' said Brett McGurk, who worked on Middle East issues for four successive US presidents, from George W. Bush to Joe Biden. 'If this ends with Fordo still enriching, then it's not a strategic gain.' That has been true for a long time, and over the past two years the US military has refined the operation, under close White House scrutiny. The exercises led to the conclusion that one bomb would not solve the problem; any attack on Fordo would have to come in waves, with B-2s releasing one bomb after another down the same hole. And the operation would have to be executed by an American pilot and crew. This was all in the world of war planning until the opening salvos Friday morning in Tehran, Iran's capital, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the strikes, declaring that Israel had discovered an 'imminent' threat that required 'preemptive action.' New intelligence, he suggested without describing the details, indicated that Iran was on the cusp of turning its fuel stockpile into weapons. US intelligence officials who have followed the Iranian program for years agree that Iranian scientists and nuclear specialists have been working to shorten the time it would take to manufacture a nuclear bomb, but they saw no huge breakthroughs. Yet they agree with Mr McGurk and other experts on one point: If the Fordo facility survives the conflict, Iran will retain the key equipment it needs to stay on a pathway to the bomb, even if it would first have to rebuild much of the nuclear infrastructure that Israel has left in ruins over four days of precision bombing. There may be other alternatives to bombing it, though they are hardly a sure thing. If the power to Fordo gets cut, by saboteurs or bombing, it could damage or destroy the centrifuges that spin at supersonic speeds. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Monday that this might have happened at the country's other major uranium enrichment centre, Natanz. Israel took out the power supplies to the plant Friday, and Mr Grossi said that the disruption probably sent them spinning out of control. Mr Trump rarely talks about Fordo by name, but he has occasionally alluded to the GBU-57, sometimes telling aides that he ordered its development. That is not correct: The United States began designing the weapon in 2004, during the Bush Administration, specifically to collapse the mountains protecting some of the deepest nuclear facilities in Iran and North Korea. It was, however, tested during Mr Trump's first term, and added to the arsenal. Mr Netanyahu has pressed for the United States to make its bunker busters available since the Bush Administration, so far to no avail. But people who have spoken to Mr Trump in recent months say the topic has come up repeatedly in his conversations with the Prime Minister. When Mr Trump has been asked about it, he usually avoids a direct answer. Now the pressure is on. Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who resigned in a split with Mr Netanyahu, told CNN's Bianna Golodryga on Monday that 'the job has to be done, by Israel, by the United States,' an apparent reference to the fact that the bomb would have to be dropped by an American pilot in a US airplane. He said that Mr Trump had 'the option to change the Middle East and influence the world.' And Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who often speaks for the traditional, hawkish members of his party, said on CBS on Sunday that 'if diplomacy is not successful' he will 'urge President Trump to go all in to make sure that, when this operation is over, there's nothing left standing in Iran regarding their nuclear program.' 'If that means providing bombs, provide bombs,' he said, adding, in a clear reference to the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, 'whatever bombs. If it means flying with Israel, fly with Israel.' But Republicans are hardly united in that view. And the split in the party over the decision of whether to make use of one of the Pentagon's most powerful conventional weapons to help one of America's closest allies has highlighted a far deeper divide. It is not only about crippling the centrifuges of Fordo; it is also about MAGA's view of what kinds of wars the United States should avoid at all costs. The anti-interventionist wing of the party, given its most prominent voice by influential podcaster Tucker Carlson, has argued that the lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan is that there is nothing but downside risk in getting deeply into another Middle East war. On Friday, Carlson wrote that the United States should 'drop Israel' and 'let them fight their own wars.' 'If Israel wants to wage this war, it has every right to do so,' he continued. 'It is a sovereign country, and it can do as it pleases. But not with America's backing.' At the Pentagon, opinion is divided for other reasons. Elbridge A. Colby, the undersecretary of defence for policy, the Pentagon's No. 3 post, has long argued that every military asset devoted to the wars of the Middle East is one diverted from the Pacific and the containment of China. (Mr Colby had to amend his views on Iran somewhat to get confirmed.) For now, Mr Trump can afford to keep one foot in both camps. By making one more run at coercive diplomacy, he can make the case to the MAGA faithful that he is using the threat of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator to bring the conflict to a peaceful end. And he can tell the Iranians that they are going to cease enriching uranium one way or the other, either by diplomatic agreement or because a GBU-57 imploded the mountain. But if the combination of persuasion and coercion fails, he will have to decide whether this is Israel's war or America's. This article originally appeared in The New York Times . © 2025 The New York Times Company
9 News
2 hours ago
- 9 News
The military code being used to mock Donald Trump
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here "Foxtrot Delta Tango" is the phrase that has been making the rounds online in the last few days, confusing plenty of Australians who aren't familiar with the military-inspired slang that has become popular in the US. Here's what it means and why it's being used as a political statement. US President Donald Trump's controversial military parade sparked division over the weekend. (Getty) The phrase "Foxtrot Delta Tango" is currently being used by people in the US and abroad to express the sentiment "f--- Donald Trump", without being explicit. Foxtrot, Delta and Tango are all code words in the NATO phonetic alphabet, used to communicate the letters of the Roman alphabet. They represent the letters F, D and T respectively, so "Foxtrot Delta Tango" stands for FDT. It is unclear where the phrase originated, as "Foxtrot Delta Tango" may have many other meanings outside expressing opposition to the US president. Recently, it has circulated broadly on social media platforms like TikTok and X (formerly Twitter), making its origins hard to pin down. Though the NATO phonetic alphabet is widely used in the US and other militaries, Foxtrot Delta Tango isn't an official military term nor is it used exclusively by military personnel. Military slang using phonetic codes isn't new and many such slang phrases have become common outside the military, such as "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", which stands for WTF or "what the f---". Opposition to Trump isn't new and people in the US and abroad have been making political statements against the commander-in-chief since before his first stint in the Oval Office. The phrase Foxtrot Delta Tango may have seen increased use lately in response to Trump's involvement in and promotion of the US Army's 250th anniversary parade last Saturday. The massive and controversial parade coincided with Trump's 79th birthday celebrations, a detail that drew criticism from some US military personnel. At the same time, massive "No Kings" demonstrations were held across the US to protest the president and his military parade. World Donald Trump USA US POLITICS president Politics social media CONTACT US
