‘Unconditional surrender,’ US options in Iran and the G7
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Today, Trump considers a possible US strike against Iran as he calls for unconditional surrender. An attack on people lining up for food kills dozens in Gaza. The G7 wraps its meetings after Trump's early departure. And what to expect from the Fed decision today. It's Wednesday, June 18th.

This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the frontlines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Van Nel in Whanganui, New Zealand. President Donald Trump is considering the US joining Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear sites. That's according to a source familiar with the discussions. It's one of a number of options being considered by Trump and his team.

The president says there is no intention to kill Iran's supreme leader for now, but he is calling for the country's unconditional surrender. It comes as Israel and Iran continue to trade attacks. Missiles were seen streaking across the sky in the West Bank and Tel Aviv.

While Iranian news outlets are reporting Israel attacked a university linked to the country's Revolutionary Guards and a ballistic missile facility near Tehran.

The US is deploying more fighter aircraft to the region, according to three US officials. And a source with access to US intelligence reports says Iran has moved some ballistic missile launches, but that it's difficult to tell if they're targeting US forces or Israel. Steve Holland is covering the story. Steve, what might a direct strike from the US look like?

One option that the president has is to launch a bunker buster bomb that would be able to penetrate deep underground in Iran. At the Fordow uranium enrichment site, it is located deep underground.

There has to be a capability to take it out. But the bunker buster bomb is one of the tools that's possible. Now, whether Trump will agree to this is unclear. It's something that the Israelis have asked for. But the Israelis have also talked about using their own weaponry to cause enough damage to block the entrance to this facility. What other options is the U.S. weighing?

There's also an option that the United States would help refuel Israeli jets that launched the attacks. That would give a step of separation between Iran and the United States. It would give...

some ability for the United States to say it's not directly involved in the conflict. President Trump started out calling for diplomacy and for Iran to have a chance to come to the table. That has changed now with him talking about unconditional surrender. What should we make of that change?

One of the things to consider is that Trump has been all about diplomacy. He's been urging Iran to come to the table that the one thing he just will not allow is Iran to have a nuclear weapon. The other day, the Supreme Leader of Iran said there's no way we're giving up enrichment. That was a sign to Trump that, hey, they're just not serious about coming to the table. So maybe it's time to consider other options.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has pointed to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes as a party to the International Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Britain's leader Keir Starmer, however, says there's no indication the US is about to enter the conflict. I spoke to President Trump just in recent days and of course Prime Minister Netanyahu and to pretty well all of the G7 leaders yesterday and I do think there's a consensus for de-escalation. He was speaking at the G7 meeting in Alberta, Canada where the group of allies struggled to find unity.

President Trump left the talks a day early to address the conflict between Israel and Iran. But not before expressing support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, scolding his peers for excluding Russia from the group back in 2014. Trump's departure snuffed out many leaders' hopes of bilateral talks to resolve the tariffs he levied on most of the nations present. Our Canada Bureau Chief Carolyn Storfer is covering the talks.

The one thing that was announced before Trump left was the finalization of the United Kingdom-U.S. trade agreement that had been agreed to a month ago. But many other leaders had hoped to have FaceTime with Trump. That's both members of the G7 and some of the special guests that Carney had invited. That includes Modi from India, the Australians, and Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum. They all kind of missed out on the opportunity to have trade discussions with Trump.

with Trump. And Trump's early departure was particularly felt by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, who hoped to garner more support in the war with Russia, but arrived after Trump had left. What did Zelensky leave the meeting with?

On the second day of the meeting, Canada did offer Ukraine some additional aid. They're offering $2 billion in direct aid and military support and an additional $2 billion in loans. Canada, of course, can't offer as much as the United States. And that is what Zelensky was hoping for. He was hoping to talk to Trump about weapons and hoping to convince Trump to take a harsher line on Russia.

To markets now, and the Fed will announce its next interest rate decision today. It's expected to leave rates unchanged in the 4.25 to 4.5% range. Reporter Howard Schneider has the details on what factors the central bank is weighing.

The economy seems to be softening a bit, though not dramatically so. The job growth is still pretty solid through May. Some weak retail sales, some weak industrial production. Add it all up, and they don't still have the clarity of a quickly slowing economy or a fast rise in inflation that they say they need to give clear guidance on what's coming next for interest rates and when. So no hike, no cut.

They're going to stay put. Now, we've got an episode of Reuters' Econ World podcast out on this very topic later today, but we're in this environment of uncertainty and volatility that's yet to really show up in the economic data in a meaningful way. Does that just create an environment for waiting and seeing for an extended period?

It's one of those slowly-then-all-at-once sort of situations, potentially, as they say. Look over the last five days, four days, you've now got this intense missile exchange between Israel and Iran. You've got the president now telling the leader there, we know where you are. So what does that mean? You're going to wake up tomorrow with oil spiking to $80 or $90 a barrel? Or is it all going to settle back because everybody took a deep breath and it stopped?

It's not an OPEC world like it used to be. But geopolitically, strategically, Straits of Hormuz, Red Sea, Indian Ocean, you know, if any of that gets gummed up like it could, then you're going to talk about a different round of impacts that the Fed might have to consider. Almost 60 people were killed after Israeli tanks fired into a crowd in Gaza as they were trying to get food aid from trucks, according to Medics.

People could be seen carrying the injured into an overwhelmed hospital in Khan Yunus. Moyad Qudas says his children are starving, so when he heard there was a delivery of flour, he went to wait. Then, according to witnesses, Israeli tanks began to fire. It's one of the single most bloody incidents so far in mounting violence as desperate residents struggle for food.

The Israeli military, at war with Hamas-led Palestinian militants in Gaza since October 2023, has acknowledged IDF firing in the area and says it's looking into the incident. L.A.'s curfew has been lifted. Mayor Karen Bass ended the restrictions on part of downtown, put in place to curb crime in the wake of immigration raids and protests. President Trump is set to extend the deadline to keep TikTok up and running in the U.S.

Chinese-based ByteDance had until tomorrow to divest U.S. assets. The White House says Trump will sign an executive order, pushing the deadline to mid-September. Prominent podcasters like Joe Rogan and AI chatbots are playing an increasingly significant role in the distribution of news in the U.S. That's according to a report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

The report found that in the week following the 2025 US presidential inauguration, more Americans got their news from social and video networks than from TV and news websites for the first time.

And for today's recommended read, less chance of that harsher stance on Russia that we mentioned Zelensky wanted to get out of the G7. The Trump administration has disbanded an interagency group whose mission was to pressure Russia into speeding up peace talks with Ukraine. The effort lost steam as it became clear that Trump was not interested in a more confrontational stance on Moscow. There's a link to that story in the pod description.

For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player, and we'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.