
Trump muses about regime change in Iran after US strikes
US President Donald Trump on Sunday signalled support for a change in leadership in Iran, hours after his officials said that the US operation targeting Iranian nuclear facilities overnight was not about a regime change in Tehran.
Advertisement
'It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change???' Trump stated on his Truth Social platform.
Earlier on Sunday, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told journalists at the Pentagon that the overnight strike on the nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow was carried out to eliminate the threat to US interests posed by Iran's nuclear programme, not to bring about regime change in Tehran.
'The president authorised a precision operation to neutralise the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear programme and the collective self-defence of our troops and our ally Israel,' Hegseth said.
01:23
China urges de-escalation of Iran conflict, hits out at US and Israel
China urges de-escalation of Iran conflict, hits out at US and Israel
US Vice-President J.D. Vance also emphasised that Iran's nuclear programme was the target. 'We are not at war with Iran, we are at war with Iran's nuclear programme,' he told NBC on Sunday.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Asia Times
16 minutes ago
- Asia Times
Behind Trump's flip-flop on Chinese student visas
President Donald Trump appears to have walked back plans for the US State Department to scrutinize and revoke visas for Chinese students studying in the country. On June 11, 2025, Trump posted on his social media platform TruthSocial that visas for Chinese students would continue and that they are welcome in the United States, as their presence 'has always been good with me!' The announcement came weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that his department would begin scrutinizing and revoking student visas for Chinese nationals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, or whose studies are in critical fields. The contradictory moves have led to confusion among Chinese students attending college or considering studying in the United States. Over time, Chinese nationals have faced barriers to studying in the US. As a scholar who studies relations between the two nations, I argue that efforts to ban Chinese students in the United States are not unprecedented, and historically, they have come with consequences. Student visas under fire The Trump administration laid out the terms for revoking or denying student visas to Chinese nationals but then backtracked. Photo: STAP / Getty Images / The Conversation Since the late 1970s, millions of Chinese students have been granted visas to study at American universities. That total includes approximately 277,000 who studied in the United States in the 2023-2024 academic year. It is difficult to determine how many of these students would have been affected by a ban on visas for individuals with Chinese Community Party affiliations or in critical fields. Approximately 40% of all new members of the Chinese Communist Party each year are drawn from China's student population. And many universities in China have party connections or charters that emphasize party loyalty. The 'critical fields' at risk were not defined. A majority of Chinese students in the US are enrolled in math, technology, science and engineering fields. A long history Since the late 1970s, the number of Chinese students attending college in the U.S. has increased dramatically. Photo: Kenishiroite / Getty Images via The Conversation Yung Wing became the first Chinese student to graduate from a US university in 1852. Since then, millions of Chinese students have come to the US to study, supported by programs such as the 'Chinese Educational Mission,' Boxer Indemnity Fund scholarships and the Fulbright Program. The Institute for International Education in New York estimated the economic impact of Chinese students in the US at over US$14 billion a year. Chinese students tend to pay full tuition to their universities. At the graduate level, they perform vital roles in labs and classrooms. Just under half of all Chinese students attending college in the US are graduate students. However, there is a long history of equating Chinese migrants as invaders, spies or risks to national security. After the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the US Department of Justice began to prevent Chinese scholars and students in STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and math – from returning to China by stopping them at US ports of entry and exit. They could be pulled aside when trying to board a flight or ship and their tickets canceled. In one infamous case, Chinese rocket scientist Qian Xuesen was arrested, harassed, ordered deported and prevented from leaving over five years from 1950 to 1955. In 1955, the United States and China began ambassadorial-level talks to negotiate repatriations from either country. After his experience, Qian became a much-lauded supporter of the Communist government and played an important role in the development of Chinese transcontinental missile technology. During the 1950s, the US Department of Justice raided Chinatown organizations looking for Chinese migrants who arrived under false names during the Chinese Exclusion Era, a period from the 1880s to 1940s when the US government placed tight restrictions on Chinese immigration into the country. A primary justification for the tactics was fear that the Chinese in the US would spy for their home country. Between 1949 and 1979, the US and China did not have normal diplomatic relations. The two nations recognized each other and exchanged ambassadors starting in January 1979. In the more than four decades since, the number of Chinese students in the US has increased dramatically. Anti-Chinese discrimination The idea of an outright ban on Chinese student visas has raised concerns about increased targeting of Chinese in the US for harassment. In 1999, Taiwanese-American scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested on suspicion of using his position at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to spy for China. Lee remained imprisoned in solitary confinement for 278 days before he was released without a conviction. In 2018, during the first Trump administration, the Department of Justice launched its China Initiative. In its effort to weed out industrial, technological and corporate espionage, the initiative targeted many ethnic Chinese researchers and had a chilling effect on continued exchanges, but it secured no convictions for wrongdoing. Trump again expressed concerns last year that undocumented migrants from China might be coming to the United States to spy or 'build an army.' The repeated search for spies among Chinese migrants and residents in the US has created an atmosphere of fear for Chinese American communities. Broader foreign policy context An atmosphere of suspicion has altered the climate for Chinese international students. Photo: J Studios / Getty Images via The Conversation The US plan to revoke visas for students studying in the US and the Chinese response is being formed amid contentious debates over trade. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian accused the US of violating an agreement on tariff reduction the two sides discussed in Geneva in May, citing the visa issues as one example. Trump has also complained that the Chinese violated agreements between the countries, and some reports suggest that the announcement on student visas was a negotiating tactic to change the Chinese stance on the export of rare earth minerals. When Trump announced his trade deal with China on June 11, he added a statement welcoming Chinese students. However, past practice shows that the atmosphere of uncertainty and suspicion may have already damaged the climate for Chinese international students, and at least some degree of increased scrutiny of student visas will likely continue regardless. Meredith Oyen is associate professor of history and Asian studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Standard
an hour ago
- The Standard
Iran issues stark warning to Trump 'the gambler': We will end this war
U.S. President Donald Trump walks to board Marine One to depart from the White House en route to New Jersey, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 20, 2025. (Reuters


South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Bitcoin drops below US$100,000 after US strikes Iran nuclear sites
Bitcoin slid below US$100,000 for the first time since May and Ether sank sharply after President Donald Trump said US bombers attacked Iran's three main nuclear sites, triggering risk aversion in weekend trading in digital-asset markets. Advertisement Bitcoin sank as much as 3.8 per cent to US$98,904 as of 12.05pm in New York in the aftermath of the attacks. Ether, the second-largest token, fell as much as 10 per cent to about US$2,157, its lowest intraday level since May 8. 'Markets are nervously eyeing ongoing geopolitical developments,' said Caroline Mauron, co-founder of Orbit Markets, a provider of liquidity for crypto derivatives. The focus of markets will be largely on oil when traditional markets reopen, she said. The latest losses come after Trump said the Iranian sites of Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan were struck in the operation, specifically describing a 'payload of BOMBS' dropped on Fordow, a key location of uranium enrichment that has raised international concern that Iran was preparing to create a nuclear weapon. 'The overhang of whether the US would strike Iran caused a sell-off through the week and into the weekend,' said Cosmo Jiang, general partner at Pantera Capital Management. Advertisement Total liquidation of crypto bets over the last 24 hours was more than US$1 billion, with about US$915 million and US$109 million in long and short positions closed respectively, according to data compiled by Coinglass.