Trump announces 4 July rally in Washington to mark US 250th anniversary
Donald Trump has announced plans to hold a rally in Washington on 4 July as America celebrates its 250th anniversary, saying the event will include a speech, performances, flyovers and fireworks.
“On July 4th, at The Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, in beautiful and safe Washington D.C., we are going to host the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ’TRIBUTE TO AMERICA.’ Starting at 7 P.M. EST, this HUGE Celebration will honor our Country’s People, Spirit, Strength, Resolve, and Triumphs,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Key events
That last post is in line with Donald Trump’s earlier suggestion that he would not attend the formal signing ceremony for the Iran agreement in Geneva on Friday.
Speaking alongside French president Emmanuel Macron at the G7 summit in Évian les-Bains, Trump had said his vice-president JD Vance would be going to Geneva for the signing.
“He was originally going to do it. I’ll probably be gone by then,” Trump said.
Vice-president JD Vance, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will lead the United States delegation at the official signing ceremony for the Iran deal on Friday in Geneva, US officials have told the New York Times.
Vance earlier dodged a question from CNBC about who would be present for the US delegation on Friday and.
The NYT report added that the vice-president will continue to lead negotiations in the next phase of the talks with Iran, citing a US official.
Will the US-Iran peace deal hold? – podcast
The US and Iran have reached a tentative deal to end the conflict, but competing claims from Washington and Tehran have left the details shrouded in uncertainty. Questions remain over the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, and the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.
In today’s edition of The Latest podcast, Nosheen Iqbal speaks to the Guardian’s senior international correspondent Julian Borger.
Trump wants to put a $75m coal terminal in this liberal California city. Residents aren’t having it
Cecilia Nowell
West Oakland, a California neighborhood known for its rich history of Black activism from the Pullman Porters’ union to the Black Panthers, might not seem like the site of the country’s next great coal project.
But that’s exactly what the Trump administration is pushing for – with the injection of $75m to build a sprawling coal export terminal in the nearby port of Oakland.
Last week, Donald Trump announced he was using wartime powers to hand $700m to coal projects around the US, including the one in Oakland. The news has breathed renewed energy into a decade-long battle against the coal terminal, which Trump hopes will break ground as soon as this summer.
Anti-coal activists were already planning a gathering about the project in Berkeley this month. But Trump’s 4 June announcement “accelerated everything”, said Veronica Eady, executive director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a grassroots organization focused on environmental justice in West Oakland, which has a high pollution burden from the nearby port, highways and other industry. “Now there is even more urgency, particularly since President Trump said he wants it to start this summer.”
Trump says he is going to focus on Ukraine now after signing Iran deal
Donald Trump spoke to the press alongside French president Emmanuel Macron, the host of this week’s G7 summit in Évian les-Bains.
The US president repeated much of what his administration has already been saying about the memorandum of understanding that has been signed by US and Iran, saying that ships are starting to pass through the strait of Hormuz now and that by Friday, the strait “will be completely open”.
He said while the strait will be open and free of tolls, he said that “I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have a ship or two up here from a few countries … because you never know what happens”. Trump said he also wants to “see if we can straighten out the Lebanon thing, because it just seems to just never end”.
“It should not be tough,” he said, adding that “we just have to have a little talk” with Hezbollah.
Trump also mentioned that he “had a very good conversation yesterday” with Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, as well as with Vladimir Putin, president of Russia.
“I see maybe we can do something there, I really do. I think they’re both open to it. So now that this is finished, we’re going to be focusing on that,” he said, referring to the conflict with Iran.
US and Iran have signed memorandum of understanding, US official says
The United States and Iran have signed a memorandum of understanding to settle the nearly four-month war, Reuters reports that senior US officials have said, adding that a signing ceremony would take place on Friday and shipping traffic in the strait of Hormuz would gradually ramp up.
The memorandum of understanding has been signed by Donald Trump and vice-president JD Vance and Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one US official said.
Speaking at a briefing with reporters, the US official added that there will also be a signing ceremony on Friday.
“You will see significant increase in traffic in the strait of Hormuz, actually starting already, and that will ramp up slowly over time,” the US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said. “We probably won’t return to normal in two weeks, but we will see a significant increase in strait traffic.”
UFC boss Dana White says ‘never again’ to another White House fight night
UFC chief executive Dana White insisted that yesterday’s event at the White House exceeded his expectations “in every way you gauge success” – but stood by his claim that it is a one-and-done.
“It was an amazing, experience, this was a one of one,” he said. “It will never happen again.”
Merchandise, he said, had hit all-time metrics, and the numbers on Paramount were “monstrous”.
“Hopefully tonight created some unity,” White said. “Even for the people that thought this was going to be some big political statement or something, this wasn’t. This was Americans, all Americans celebrating the birthday. For people who tuned in for the first time, because it was at the White House, hopefully they liked the sport. They liked some of the guy’s stories.”
But despite all the pomp and pageantry, the eyerolls and angst, White stood by his claim that UFC is one-and-done in DC.
The constant headaches over weather concerns in the rare outdoors show, the logistics of construction of the cage and staging events at federal landmarks and the soaring cost – UFC said it was footing the $60m tab – made the Freedom 250 a one-off for a company once dubbed “human cockfighting”.
“I can’t afford it,” White said. “I’ll never do the Sphere [in Las Vegas] again and we’ll never do this again.”
White also said that he and Donald Trump had discussed doing a fight for troops in 2027 but coordinating with the military to have fights on military bases takes time.
“He wanted to do it this year,” White said. “And I said, sir, I need a year to recover financially.”
Donald Trump will be looking to build on the momentum of announcing his deal with Iran, and is expected to discuss with the G7 leaders the de-mining of the strait of Hormuz.
Britain and France have expressed interest in assisting with that effort once the conflict was paused. Fears over potential mines is among the reasons tanker traffic ground to a halt in the critical waterway during the war, and quickly clearing them will be crucial to regaining the confidence of commercial vessels to resume navigating the strait.
Macron today said France was ready to move “very quickly” to deploy assets, including mine-clearing vessels, to the region to help, the Associated Press reports.
The French president added that a French aircraft carrier and an accompanying strike group are already in the region and would be ready to assist within days of the US and Iran signing the agreement.
Here are some pictures of Donald Trump’s arrival for the G7 summit in Évian les-Bains.
Patrick Wintour
in Évian les-Bains
Emmanuel Macron, the host of the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, has framed an agenda to make it as palatable as possible to his guest of honour, but the French president has no idea if Donald Trump, a haphazard summit attender, will last the full three days – or disrupt the proceedings every hour he stays.
The US president quit the last G7 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, early to work on the Iran conflict, and this year, plus ça change, Iran may also draw presidential attention. For good measure, he insulted this summit’s host before leaving Canada last year, describing Macron as “publicity seeking” and adding: “Purposefully or not, Emmanuel Macron always gets it wrong.”
Macron, who will be attending his 10th G7 summit, chose not to take umbrage, and has even postponed the start of the summit to allow Trump to celebrate his 80th birthday with a UFC event on the White House lawn. Macron is holding out a dinner in Versailles on Wednesday night as a reward if Trump stays the three days; French officials say Trump adores the palace’s gold, and insist the two men respect each other.
It will be touch and go if Trump completes the summit. Reports out of Washington suggest the US president has not been in celebratory mood, and the temptation for him will be to insult his six fellow leaders – representing Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK – for lacking the loyalty to join his earlier plan to reopen the strait of Hormuz through force. At best, he will be demanding the planned Franco-British naval taskforce to enforce the restoration of freedom of navigation, as outlined in the US-Iran joint memorandum of understanding, moves quickly. De-mining is also urgently needed if the hundreds of tankers backed up in the strait are to reach the arteries of the world economy in time.
The other G7 leaders – all opposed to the Iran war, with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, describing it as a US humiliation – will have to decide whether to look ahead, or pass verdict on a war that has upended the world economy.
Trump also faces being cornered by two other even more persistent wars – Ukraine and Gaza. Macron wants to see Europe given a greater role in solving both conflicts, pointing out it is Europe, not the US, that is saving Ukraine from bankruptcy.
France will also be pressing for the US to resolve the impasse in Gaza over Hamas disarmament. Trump will meet leaders from Qatar, UAE and Egypt to discuss the crisis and the fallout from Iran. But there will be no attempt to sign a joint communique on the conflicts and Macron will instead issue a summary.
If the worst comes to the worst, the Évian golf course – which dates back to 1904 – is closed for the three days, and if the earnest summitry gets too much, it represents an escape route for the world’s most famous 80-year-old golfer.
Trump arrives for G7 summit at tense moment for relations
Donald Trump has landed in Geneva ahead of this week’s G7 summit, shortly after announcing his tentative peace agreement with Iran to end a war that has upended the global economy and killed thousands of people in the region.
From Geneva, he will travel to Évian-les-Bains, France, where world leaders are gathered for the annual summit. Later today he’ll have a bilateral meeting with the host, French president Emmanuel Macron, ahead of a working dinner with the other G7 leaders.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy will also meet with G7 leaders, including Trump, tomorrow, as Russia’s invasion of his country rages on – though there’s no word yet on whether or not he’ll get a one-on-one with the US president.
This year’s summit comes as Trump’s relations with many of the other G7 leaders is at an all-time low. Indeed, he’s fallen out massively with several key allies who have criticized his war on Iran – British PM Keir Starmer, German chancellor Friederich Merz (who described the war as a humiliation of the United States), and Italian PM Giorgia Meloni. He’s always had a turbulent relationship with Macron, but that’s also disintegrated after Trump’s “inelegant” comments about his private life. Trump’s relationship with Canadian PM Mark Carney also remains cordial yet tense. Indeed, the only G7 leader Trump has a warm relationship with at the moment is Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi.
A reminder that Trump left last year’s summit in the Canadian Rockies after only a day as the Israeli-Iran conflict intensified. Three days later he joined Israel in bombing key Iranian nuclear sites.
