Iran has quadrupled its production of low-enriched uranium as of Monday, AP reports, citing Iranian news agencies.
The backdrop: This follows a tweet President Trump posted on Sunday, cautioning that Iran would face its "official end," should the nation threaten the U.S. again. The deepening conflict follows Trump's decision a year ago to unilaterally withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Both Washington and Tehran claim not to want war, however the Trump administration announced deployments of bombers and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf over unspecified Iranian threats earlier in May.
Palestinian leadership gave a cool response to the White House's announcement that it will launch the economic part of its Middle East peace plan next month at a conference in Bahrain, with one top official indicating they will not show up.
Why it matters: The White House put forward the economic part of the plan first so the Palestinians, who have been boycotting relations with the U.S. since President Trump's decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel in Jerusalem, would not reject it out of hand.
President Trump tweeted Sunday if Iran wants a fight, it'd be the "official end" of the country, hours before Fox News broadcast an interview in which he said he wouldn't let Tehran have nuclear weapons.
Details: Trump tweeted after a rocket exploded near the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, "Never threaten the United States again!" No one's claimed responsibility for the attack. In an interview on Fox News' "The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton" recorded last week, Trump said he didn't want a fight. "But you do have situations like Iran, you can’t let them have nuclear weapons," he said.
The White House is planning to launch the economic part of the Trump administration Israeli-Palestinian peace plan in mid-June and will hold a special international workshop on Bahrain on June 25–26 to discuss the implementation of the economic plan.
What's next: A senior White House official said the Trump peace team led by senior adviser Jared Kushner has decided to launch the peace plan in two phases. Phase 1: Publish a plan to boost the Palestinian economy. Phase 2: Publish the political plan, which will deal with core issues like borders and Jerusalem.
