{"id":166908,"date":"2026-06-18T20:37:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/166908\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:37:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:37:50","slug":"us-iran-deal-turns-into-loyalty-test-for-donald-trump-as-he-hits-out-at-benjamin-netanyahu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/166908\/","title":{"rendered":"US-Iran deal turns into loyalty test for Donald Trump, as he hits out at Benjamin Netanyahu"},"content":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump<\/a> arrived at the Group of Seven summit in France this week with a new US-Iran agreement to sell, a restless Israeli ally to discipline, and a familiar message for the world: He alone had done what others would not.<\/p>\n

For more stories from The Media Line go to themedialine.org<\/a><\/p>\n

The result was a diplomatic week that sounded less like a standard summit communiqu\u00e9 and more like a rolling Trump production – part peace announcement, part grievance session, part loyalty test.<\/p>\n

The sharpest remarks were aimed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose latest strikes in Lebanon angered Washington just as Trump was trying to lock down an agreement with Tehran. Speaking in \u00c9vian-les-Bains, Trump said Netanyahu \u201chas to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon<\/a>,\u201d calling the Beirut strike \u201cvicious\u201d and \u201ctoo much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came the line built for headlines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout us, without the United States, there would be no Israel,\u201d Trump said, according to CBS News. \u201cWithout me, there would be no Israel, because no other president was willing to do what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"USUS President Donald Trump arrives to attend a musical interlude before a gala dinner as part of the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, June 16, 2026. (credit: Ludovic Marin\/Pool via REUTERS\/File Photo)Trump calls Netanyahu ‘very difficult’<\/p>\n

It was not the only sweeping claim. In an interview reported by The New York Times and quoted by Israeli media, Trump described Netanyahu<\/a> as \u201ca very difficult guy\u201d and said the Israeli leader should be grateful for the Iran agreement. \u201cBecause if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn\u2019t be around for two hours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That remark captured the new tension in the relationship. Trump continues to frame himself as Israel\u2019s indispensable protector, but he is also increasingly willing to speak about Netanyahu as a problem to be managed rather than a partner to be praised.<\/p>\n

The irritation has been building. Axios reported earlier this month that\u00a0 Trump erupted at Netanyahu in a profanity-laced call over Israeli escalation in Lebanon, accusing him of endangering the US-led Iran talks. CBS News reported that Trump later told Fox News he had asked Netanyahu, \u201cWhat the f*** are you doing?\u201d after the Beirut strikes.<\/p>\n

Israel divided on Trump deal\u00a0<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s political class, meanwhile, has been divided not over whether Iran remains a threat, but over whether Trump\u2019s deal restrains Tehran or rewards it. Netanyahu has avoided a full public rupture, saying the decision belongs to Trump while insisting that Israel must protect its own security interests. Far-right ministers were less restrained. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said, \u201cTrump\u2019s agreement does not bind us,\u201d while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called the deal bad for Israel and \u201cthe entire free world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discomfort was not confined to Jerusalem. At the G7, French President Emmanuel Macron was caught on a hot mic telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a> that he had had a \u201cdifficult discussion\u201d with Trump. The moment offered a small but revealing glimpse of how other leaders now work around the American president: carefully, quietly, and with the microphone ideally off.<\/p>\n

Trump, for his part, presented the Iran deal as proof of leverage, not compromise. He said the memorandum of understanding clearly states that Iran will not obtain a nuclear weapon and that he was open to sending the agreement to Congress for review. He also warned that \u201call hell will rain down\u201d if Tehran tries to build a bomb.<\/p>\n

For Israel, the week exposed an uncomfortable reality. Trump remains popular, powerful, and rhetorically committed to Israel\u2019s survival. But his support now comes with public scolding, transactional accounting, and an unmistakable demand that Netanyahu not interfere with the deal Trump wants to call his own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump arrived at the Group of Seven summit in France this week with a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[41,1412,38,1143,382,6316,34,37,8750,93,715,21001,2716],"class_list":["post-166908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-bezalel-smotrich","tag-donald-trump","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-france","tag-g7","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-itamar-ben-gvir","tag-lebanon","tag-the-media-line","tag-us-iran-deal","tag-volodymyr-zelensky"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116773041239107535","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}