A large majority of Americans say that not only should the Iran conflict end immediately, but that President Donald Trump has not reached any of his stated goals for starting the conflict in the first place.

Over three-quarters of Americans, 78%, said in a new CBS News/YouGov poll the conflict in Iran should end “now.” Only 22% said it would be better to keep fighting until Iran agrees to “give up more” concessions to the United States.

Americans also felt that Trump’s stated goals for starting the conflict had not been met. When asked if Iran had been stopped from threatening other countries, only 32% said it had. A similar proportion, 31%, think that the conflict “permanently stopped” nuclear programs in the country. Even fewer think that the conflict has led to pro-U.S. leaders taking charge—only 21%—and slightly more, 26%, think that the U.S. has brought safety and freedom to the Iranian people. Overall, 69% say the Iran conflict was “not worth the cost.”

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The results remained relatively steady across demographics, with the exception of Americans who identified as conservative. But even then, the conservative responses were not as much in Trump’s favor as one might expect. When asked if the Iran conflict should end now, while liberals and moderates strongly agreed, at 95% and 80% respectively, a majority of conservatives, 61%, also agreed.

A slight majority of conservatives, 53%, thought Iran’s nuclear programs had been permanently stopped. They were split on the question of whether Iran would threaten other countries—48% of conservatives said Iran would stop, while 52% said they wouldn’t. When it came to replacing Iran’s leaders with pro-U.S. ones or bringing freedom to Iranian citizens, a majority of conservatives agreed that hadn’t happened.

The survey was conducted between June 17-19, and surveyed 2,519 adults. It has a 2.4% margin of error.

While the Iranian conflict has caused new leaders to take control of the country—former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in airstrikes in February—he was replaced by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei. The younger Khamenei is widely described as being more conservative than his father, and the Atlantic Council think tank said he has ties to clerics it described as the “most ideologically extremist,” according to Axios.

Though Trump has claimed Iran’s military is “totally destroyed,” he’s also warned that the country could have a nuclear bomb “within six months.” However, the first report from the International Atomic Energy Agency since the Iran conflict started says that there has been no major change to the country’s nuclear program, according to Reuters.

Image via Reuters

President Donald Trump vowed not to invite South Africa to the 2026 meeting of the G20 over a debunked conspiracy theory he continues to push.

Writing to his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced that the U.S. did not attend this year’s G20 meeting in Johannesburg, and, in turn, wouldn’t let South Africa attend next year’s meeting in Miami.

“The United States did not attend the G20 in South Africa, because the South African Government refuses to acknowledge or address the horrific Human Right Abuses endured by Afrikaners, and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers. To put it more bluntly, they are killing white people, and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them. Perhaps, worst of all, the soon to be out of business New York Times and the Fake News Media won’t issue a word against this genocide. That’s why all the Liars and Pretenders of the Radical Left Media are going out of business! At the conclusion of the G20, South Africa refused to hand off the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from our U.S. Embassy, who attended the Closing Ceremony. Therefore, at my direction, South Africa will NOT be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be hosted in the Great City of Miami, Florida next year. South Africa has demonstrated to the World they are not a country worthy of Membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump wrote.

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Trump’s claims of human rights abuses against Afrikaners has been widely debunked. Trump says that the South African government, in retribution for apartheid-era institutional racism, is punishing the white population of the country. The conspiracy theory alleges that South Africa is engaging in “white genocide” against the Afrikaners, according to NPR.

While Trump is correct that the “fake news media won’t issue a word against this genocide,” it’s because it’s not happening. Even Afrikaners have denied that there is an “existential threat” against them, according to France24.

“We reject the narrative that casts Afrikaners as victims of racial persecution in post-apartheid South Africa. This framing, now being used to support the far-right ‘Great Replacement’ theory in the United States, is not only misleading, but also dangerous. It distorts the realities of South Africa, weaponizes our history, and reduces a complex social context and necessary levelling of playing fields into a simplistic symbol of white decline,” a letter from several prominent Afrikaners reads.

“Let us be clear: South Africa faces serious challenges – crime, inequality, and the enduring legacy of apartheid. But these issues affect South Africans of all races. To cherry-pick white suffering and elevate it above others is dishonest and harmful. It feeds extremist ideologies that perpetuate division and have inspired real-world violence, including mass shootings.”

The letter was signed by 46 Afrikaners in South Africa, including professors, journalists and more. It was sent in response to Trump’s first overture to the conspiracy theory, which was to allow Afrikaners to come to the United States as refugees—all while the number of real refugees the U.S. will accept has been lowered from 125,000 to just 7,500.

Image via Reuters

Much of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about his on-again/off-again tariff plan is based around the idea that the U.S. is in a trade deficit with many countries around the world. But a deficit isn’t always a bad thing.

On Monday, the White House released a new statement that the U.S. and China had come to an agreement to lower tariffs. Earlier this year, Trump had proposed a 145% tariff against China, and the country retaliated with a proposed 125% tariff on U.S. goods. The new plan sees the tariffs drastically lowered to 30% on imported Chinese goods and 10% on American goods imported into China. The new deal is temporary, lasting 90 days.

“For too long, unfair trade practices and America’s massive trade deficit with China have fueled the offshoring of American jobs and the decline of our manufacturing sector,” the White House said in a statement.

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Earlier this year, Trump characterized the United States’ trade deficit with Canada as subsidizing our neighbors to the north. But a trade deficit is just a gap between the amount of goods and services exported and imported to and from a country. For example, the U.S. imports $412.7 billion of goods from Canada while exporting $349.4 billion. While that might look like a $63.3 trade deficit, that doesn’t take into account money coming in the services sector, so our trade deficit with Canada is actually $35.7 billion.

The U.S. has a trade surplus with some countries, too. Brazil buys a lot of energy resources from the U.S., according to the New York Times, but doesn’t sell nearly as many other goods and services back to the states.

The concept of trade deficits and surpluses is wholly neutral—and in fact, a trade deficit can be a good thing.

“America is getting more cheap goods, and in return it is giving foreigners financial assets: dollars issued by the Federal Reserve, bonds from the US government and American corporations, and stocks in newly created firms,” Tarek Alexander Hassan, a professor of economics at Boston University, wrote. “That is, a trade deficit can only arise if foreigners invest more in the US than Americans invest abroad.”

But, of course, sometimes trade deficits can be problematic for a country. If a country has a very large trade deficit for a long time, that can make it more susceptible to the winds of change, according to Jason Furman, who served on the White House Council of Economic Advisors during President Barack Obama’s second term. But, as Furman told NPR, that doesn’t apply to the United States.

Furman also pointed out that while tariffs can be a useful thing, Trump’s tariffs in particular are not.

“Let’s say you wanted to use trade policy to bring manufacturing jobs back. You wouldn’t do what the president just did, which is to put tariffs on all the bananas, mangoes, avocados and coffee coming into the United States. Those just aren’t things that we’re really ever going to make at enormous scale,” he said. “Moreover, the types of things that they do in Vietnam – you know, making clothing, making shoes – that’s not the jobs that we should be aspiring to have in the United States. We don’t want to give up jobs making airplanes in order to have more jobs making shoes.”

Featured image via Reuters