Seven countries including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt say they will join US president Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, according to a joint statement.

They will join Israel, which also publicly confirmed its participation earlier on Wednesday.

The group of Muslim-majority countries named in the statement are Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Qatar.

The board was originally thought to be aimed at helping end the two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and oversee reconstruction. But its proposed charter does not mention the Palestinian territory and appears to be designed to supplant functions of the UN.

However Saudi Arabia said that the countries endorsed the aim of consolidating a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, supporting reconstruction and advancing what they described as a “just and lasting peace”.

Following their accession, Slovenia’s prime minister Robert Golob said he had declined the invitation because the body “dangerously interferes with the broader international order”.

So far Bahrain, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Vietnam have also agreed to join.

It is not clear how many countries have been invited to join Trump’s new body -Canada, Russia and the UK are among them, but have not yet publicly responded.

The Vatican also confirmed Pope Leo has received an invitation. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said the Pope would need time to consider whether to take part.

A leaked document says the Board of Peace’s charter will enter into force once three states formally agree to be bound by it, with member states given renewable three-year terms and permanent seats available to those contributing $1bn (£740m), it said.

The charter declared the body as an international organisation mandated to carry out peace-building functions under international law, with Trump serving as chairman – and separately as the US representative – and holding authority to appoint executive board members and create or dissolve subsidiary bodies.

Last Friday, the White House named seven members of the founding Executive Board, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former UK prime minister Tony Blair.

Former UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov was appointed as the board’s representative in Gaza during a second phase of the plan, which includes reconstruction and demilitarisation, with the board authorised by a UN Security Council resolution running until the end of 2027.

On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office said the Gaza Executive Board’s composition “was not coordinated with Israel and runs contrary to its policy”.

Israeli media said the decision to include representatives of Turkey and Qatar – which both helped broker the ceasefire that took effect in October, along with Egypt and the US – had happened “over Israel’s head”.

Under phase one of the peace plan, Hamas and Israel agreed to the ceasefire, an exchange of living and dead Israeli hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a partial Israeli withdrawal, and a surge in deliveries of humanitarian aid.

Israel has said it can only move into the second phase after Hamas hands over the body of the last dead hostage.

Phase two faces major challenges, with Hamas having previously refused to give up its weapons without the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and Israel having not committed to fully withdrawing from Gaza.

The ceasefire is also fragile. More than 460 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes since it came into force, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, while the Israeli military says three of its soldiers have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period.

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Israel responded to the attack by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 71,550 people have been killed, according to the territory’s health ministry.

US President Donald Trump has said countries doing business with Iran will face a 25% tariff on trade they do with America.

It comes as Iran cracks down on anti-government protests, with thousands of people feared dead.

Trump has used the threat of tariffs before to exert pressure on countries. Here’s what we know so far.

Not a huge amount. On Monday Trump posted on Truth Social: “Effective immediately, any country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America.

“This order is final and conclusive. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The president has not gone into any detail beyond that.

Of the 100-plus countries that trade with Iran, China is its biggest export partner.

In the year to October 2025, it bought more than $14bn (£10.4bn) of products from Iran, according to figures from Trade Data Monitor which are based on statistics from the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration.

China is followed by Iraq, which received $10.5bn worth of goods from its neighbour. Iran also counts the United Arab Emirates and Turkey among its largest customers.

In fact, exports from Iran to Turkey jumped substantially from $4.7bn in 2024 to $7.3bn last year.

Almost all of Iran’s top 10 exports are fuel-related – it is one of the world’s largest oil producers.

It also ships food to other nations, including pistachios and tomatoes.

However, Iran buys far more staples from its trade partners than it exports.

Food makes up about a third of Iran’s imports, in particular corn, rice, sunflower seeds and oils as well as soybeans.

But Iran’s biggest import is gold, which has soared in value in recent years.

In the 12 months to October, it imported $6.7bn worth of gold compared with $4.8bn in the year before.

Trump’s post says the 25% tariff is “effective immediately”, and the order is “final and conclusive”.

However, there has been no detail as yet from the White House as to how it would work in practice, or which countries specifically it would apply to.

We don’t know if it would cover all countries who deal with Iran or just its biggest trade partners.

It is also unclear whether the 25% tax will come on top of existing tariffs the Trump administration has already imposed.

The US has also not specified under what law the new tariff would be introduced. Sweeping tariffs announced last April were imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

But this is currently subject to legal challenge – with the US Supreme Court due to rule as soon as Wednesday. On Monday Trump said the US would be “screwed” if these tariffs aren’t upheld.

Enforcing the proposed tariff could be difficult. Iran is estimated to have made billions from oil exports in 2024 using a fleet of shadow ships that are hard to track and by selling its oil in Chinese yuan rather than the more traditional US dollars.

On the face of it, Trump’s announcement risks reigniting the trade conflict between the US and China.

If the president meant what he wrote, it would mean Chinese goods sent to the US should immediately be subject to the new 25% tariff.

However, these are already subject to an average tariff rate of 30.8%, according to Bloomberg Economics.

So will the new tariff be imposed in addition to the current levy? Or will allowances be made?

China has previously shown a willingness to push back against what it perceives as disproportionate action by the US.

It has done so partly by introducing its own tariffs, but more importantly by announcing restrictions on exports of rare earths, which the US desperately needs for its tech-heavy industries.

China currently dominates the global supply, giving it crucial leverage, which helped Beijing reach a temporary trade truce with the US in November that defused tensions.

So introducing a new 25% tariff on China now would be highly provocative, and Beijing has already warned it will “take all necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests”.

Analysts question whether it will actually happen, given the real-world impact of previous Trump announcements not always matching the initial headline.

Iran’s huge oil reserves make it one of the world’s top 10 oil producers and it should be a source of great wealth.

However, its economy has been crippled by years of mismanagement of the public finances, a fall in oil sales and biting international sanctions.

Many of the country’s 92 million people are struggling to afford basics such as food and utilities, and the cost of living is at the heart of the protests seen in recent weeks.

Household spending has fallen compared to its 2008 peak, according to BBC analysis, and government restrictions on women’s ability to work has pushed the employment rate down from 42.4% two decades ago to around 37%.

At the same time things have become more expensive thanks to high inflation, which hit 48.4% in October amid government policy changes that have led to the value of the rial to fall against the US dollar.

That makes imports even more expensive. Those are even more important because significant under-investment in the electricity and water systems mean they are unreliable and have undermined government pledges to increase domestic production of everything from food to consumer goods.

A reduction of fuel subsidies in December and potentially even less foreign trade due to these latest tariffs means inflation could yet climb higher and push the economy even closer towards collapse.

US President Donald Trump’s second term is being shaped by his foreign policy ambitions.

He’s followed through on threats against Venezuela by capturing its president and his wife from their heavily fortified Caracas compound in a dramatic overnight raid.

When describing the operation, Trump dusted off the 1823 Monroe Doctrine and its promise of US supremacy in the western hemisphere – re-branding it the “Donroe Doctrine”.

Here are some of the warnings he’s made against other nations in Washington’s orbit in recent days.

The US already has a military base on Greenland – Pituffik Space Base – but Trump wants the whole island.

“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security”, he told journalists, saying the region was “covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.”

The vast Arctic island, part of the Kingdom of Denmark, sits roughly 2,000 miles (3,200 km) to the north-east of the US.

It’s rich in rare earth minerals, which are crucial for the production of smart phones, electric vehicles and military hardware. Currently, China’s production of rare earths far outweighs that of the US.

Greenland also occupies a key strategic location in the North Atlantic, giving access to the increasingly important Arctic circle. As polar ices melt in the coming years, new shipping routes are expected to open up.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen responded to Trump by describing the notion of US control over the island as a “fantasy”.

“No more pressure. No more insinuations. No more fantasies of annexation. We are open to dialogue. We are open to discussions. But this must happen through the proper channels and with respect for international law,” he said.

Any US attempt to seize Greenland would bring it into conflict with another Nato member, likely putting the alliance in peril.

Just hours after the operation in Venezuela, Trump warned Colombian President Gustavo Petro to “watch his ass”.

Venezuela’s neighbour to the west, Colombia is home to substantial oil reserves and is a major producer of gold, silver, emeralds, platinum and coal.

It is also a key hub for the region’s drug trade – most notably cocaine.

Since the US began striking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific in September – saying, without evidence, they were carrying drugs – Trump has been locked in a spiralling dispute with the country’s left-wing president.

The US imposed sanctions on Petro in October, saying he was allowing cartels to “flourish”.

Speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said Colombia was being “run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States”.

“He’s not going to be doing it for very long”, he said. Asked whether the US would carry out an operation targeting Colombia, Trump replied, “It sounds good to me”.

Historically, Colombia has been a close ally in Washington’s war on drugs, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars annually in military assistance to counter cartels.

Iran is currently facing mass anti-government protests, and Trump warned overnight that the authorities there would be “hit very hard” if more protesters died.

“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

Iran theoretically falls outside the scope defined in the “Donroe Doctrine”, but Trump has nonetheless previously threatened the Iranian regime with further action, after striking its nuclear facilities last year.

Those strikes came after Israel launched a large-scale operation aimed at decapitating Iran’s capability to develop a nuclear weapon, which culminated in the 12-day Israel-Iran conflict.

In a Mar-a-Lago meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, Iran was said to be top of the agenda. US media reported that Netanyahu raised the potential of new strikes against Iran in 2026.

Trump’s rise to power in 2016 was defined by his calls to “Build the Wall” along the southern border with Mexico.

On his first day back in office in 2025, he signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”.

He has frequently claimed Mexican authorities aren’t doing enough to stop the flow of drugs or illegal immigrants into the US.

Speaking on Sunday, he said that drugs were “pouring” through Mexico and “we’re gonna have to do something”, adding that the cartels there were “very strong.”

Trump said he’s offered to send US troops to Mexico to combat cartels, but President Claudia Sheinbaum has publicly rejected any US military action on Mexican soil.

The island nation, just 90 miles (145 km) south of Florida, has been under US sanctions since the early 1960s.

It held close relations with Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela, which reportedly supplied roughly 30% of Cuba’s oil in exchange for doctors and medics travelling in the other direction.

With Maduro gone, Havana could be exposed if oil supply collapses.

Trump suggested on Sunday that US military intervention there wasn’t needed, because Cuba is “ready to fall.”

“I don’t think we need any action”, he said. “It looks like it’s going down.”

“I don’t know if they’re going to hold out, but Cuba now has no income,” he added. “They got all their income from Venezuela, from Venezuelan oil.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who is the son of Cuban immigrants – has long called for regime change in Cuba, telling journalists on Saturday: “If I lived in Havana, and I was in the government, I’d be concerned – at least a little bit”.

“When the president speaks, you should take him seriously,” he said.