Donald Trump has signed an executive order withdrawing from the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. Shortly afterward, he issued a memorandum on Iran, saying Tehran was “too close” to a nuclear weapon.
Tuesday 4 February 2025 21:32, UK
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Donald Trump has just welcomed Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.
The Israeli prime minister is the first foreign leader to visit Trump since he was inaugurated for his second term as president.
Earlier, Trump said the two leaders would have a “pretty long meeting” where they would discuss “a lot of things”.
The Senate’s intelligence committee today voted to back Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence.
Tulsi Gabbard received a 9-8 vote in her favour, clearing an important hurdle for her nomination.
The committee’s action opens the way for the full Senate to decide if Gabbard, a 43-year-old former Democrat, should be confirmed as the country’s top-ranking intelligence official.
No date has been announced for her consideration by the full 100-member Senate, where she cannot afford to lose the support of more than three of Trump’s fellow Republicans and still be confirmed, given unified Democratic opposition.
Democrats, and some Republicans, had expressed doubts about the choice of Gabbard, who has little intelligence experience, for the position overseeing all 18 US intelligence agencies.
During her confirmation hearing she faced intense questioning from senators from both parties about her past defence of Edward Snowden and comments seen as supportive of Russia.
Speaking to reporters as he signed an executive order in the Oval Office, Donald Trump says he and Benjamin Netanyahu are going to have a “pretty long meeting” later.
Trump is hosting the Israeli prime minister in Washington as the first foreign leader to meet him during his second term as president.
“It’d be great if we could have a Middle East and maybe a world at total peace,” said Trump.
“Right now, you don’t have that. When I left, you had peace all over the world, and now you have the world blowing up.
“As you know, Bibi is coming in to see me later. We’ll see what we can do.”
Will the US help Israel strike Iran?
Part of the executive order Trump just signed included re-imposing the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran.
The president said Tehran was “too close” to developing a nuclear weapon.
Asked if, during his meeting with Netanyahu later, he would offer Israel help to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump said he couldn’t discuss it.
“I don’t know that that’s what he’s going to be asking for,” he said. “I have no idea that it is. You’re telling me.
“We’re going to have a pretty long meeting. We’re going to be discussing a lot of things. Not only that, but a lot of things.
“And, I’ll let you know if the time comes to let you know. But right now, that’s not something that I can discuss.”
Here are the images we’re receiving from the White House, where Donald Trump has been signing an executive order.
The order withdraws the US from the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees, as well as re-imposing the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran and withdraws the US from the UN Human Rights Council.
More from Donald Trump now, who has just confirmed that he plans to “wind down” the US government’s international aid agency.
The agency has been in turmoil as the Trump administration considers merging USAID into the State Department in a major revamp that would shrink its workforce.
Trump said billionaire Elon Musk, who is in charge of the effort, has been doing a “great job” and that there is a lot of fraud at the agency.
He also said he would like to be able to close the Department of Education using an executive order.
Read more about USAID with our explainer here…
Donald Trump says Palestinians have “no alternative” but to leave Gaza, but that he doesn’t necessarily support Israelis settling in the enclave.
The US president also repeated previous suggestions that he would like to see Jordan and Egypt take Palestinians from Gaza.
For context: Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been returning to their homes following a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel.
Many of their homes have been destroyed by months of fighting.
Trump has previously described Gaza as a “demolition site”, saying the US should “clean out that whole thing”.
More from the White House – and Donald Trump has signed a memorandum on Iran.
The president said he was “torn” when choosing whether to sign it or not, but said Tehran was “too close” to having a nuclear weapon.
Trump said he would hold talks with his counterpart in Tehran, but warned he’s left “instructions” that if Iran assassinated him, the US foe “would be obliterated”.
At the end of last year, officials charged a man over an alleged Iranian plot to kill Trump before the presidential election.
Donald Trump has just signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the UN Human Rights Council and continue the halt of funding for the UN’s relief agency for Gaza.
The actions reinstate policies in place during the president’s first administration.
They come on the day that Trump is due to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
For context: The US has long accused the UN council of bias against Israel.
The Joe Biden 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.
By Sam Coates, deputy political editor
Britain could do a slimmed-down trade deal with the United States within months, the last politician to oversee negotiations with Donald Trump’s administration over a UK-US agreement has told Sky News.
Last night, Sky News revealed that leading members of Trump’s administration believe a trade deal with the UK could be sealed in a matter of months.
Britain was negotiating a full Free Trade Agreement with Donald Trump during his first presidency, but this was junked by his successor President Biden.
The negotiations were overseen by then-Tory trade secretary, Anne Marie-Trevelyan, who today told Sky News that a deal could even be struck with the US even before the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement is concluded.
Trevelyan said that about half the work on a deal had already been concluded under the Boris Johnson administration.
“I was the trade secretary just at the end of the first Trump administration, and we had already, been moving discussions, probably about halfway there in terms of the trade negotiations,” Trevelyan said.
She added that the US can work faster than the EU on trade negotiations, and that might be concluded first.
“I think the challenge with anything with the EU is you’re dealing with, you know, multiple countries who all have to agree,” Trevelyan added.
“The challenge with any trade deal, which is why TCA took a long time to negotiate to the level that we got, is that everyone’s pulling a little bit differently.”
American shoppers are likely to see prices rise across Shein, Temu and Amazon Haul, analysts and industry experts have warned.
It comes as Donald Trump shut a trade loophole that has been used to ship low-value packages duty-free from China.
Both fast-fashion retailer Shein and online store Temu have grown rapidly in the US, thanks to the “de minimis” exemption which enables them to keep prices low.
“For companies like Temu and Shein this is obviously a very big deal because de minimis was one of the levers they used to be able to offer these low prices as well as ensure speed of products entering the country,” Juozas Kaziukenas, Marketplace Pulse’s chief executive said.
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