Donald Trump wants Tehran evacuated ‘immediately’, hints at joining the war

“Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran”, posted US President Donald Trump at 6.30 pm on 16 June, 2025. It was 2 am in Tehran and 4 am in New Delhi on Tuesday, 17 June.

The ominous message of the US President, from Canada where he attended the G-7 meeting, refused to call for restraint in the Middle East and signed a trade deal with the United Kingdom before heading back home. Minutes later Fox News reported that the US President had asked for the National Security Council to be convened in the ‘situation room’ when he arrives back in Washington DC.

The message followed a formal request by Israel for the United States to help ‘defend’ Israel against Iran on 16 June, three days after Israel launched an unprovoked attack on Iran and hit its nuclear installations.  The attack effectively ended the talks that Iran and the US teams were to hold at Muscat (Oman) on 15 June.

On 13 June, after the Israeli attack, Trump claimed he had given Iran 60 days to make the deal. “On the 61st day, they [Israel] attacked. Today is 61 actually, and it was a very successful attack,” he said.

Earlier the US President refused to sign a joint statement prepared by G7 leaders calling for de-escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran. According to Reuters and other news agencies, the draft statement declared that while Israel has the right to defend itself, Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.

At the start of a bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump told reporters that Iran should begin talks immediately. “I’d say Iran is not winning this war, and they should talk, and they should talk immediately before it’s too late,” he was quoted as saying.

Significantly, the warning by the US President came as missiles from Iran hit Israel hard for the third consecutive night. The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again urged the US to join the war and publicly asserted that assassinating Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would ‘end the war’.

Israel also banned foreign TV crew from filming the impact of Iranian missiles on ground and banned citizens from leaving the country. Civil airports in Israel remained closed even as there were reports of people trying to flee by the sea route.

The US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had deposed weeks ago that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons; and on 12 June, 2025—the day before Israel launched the unprovoked attack on Iran—Trump actually called on Israel not to strike at Iran.

 “We are fairly close to a pretty good agreement,” he said and referred to a possibility of a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. Within a few hours, Israel launched its biggest air strike in Iran, hitting the Natanz nuclear facility and multiple missile sites, and assassinating the Islamic Republic’s top Generals.

The US and Israel are against a nuclear-powered country in the Middle East other than Israel, which is believed to have 90 nuclear warheads. Iran had indicated its willingness to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes provide the US and Western countries lifted the economic sanctions imposed on it since the early 1980s.