Foreign Secretary David Lammy says he does not accept Iran’s claims that the country is enriching uranium for academic purposes.

Representatives from the United Kingdom, Germany and France held talks with Iran last week to try to break the deadlock over the country’s nuclear programme.

Tehran maintains it is open to diplomacy, though it recently suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

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A central concern for western powers was highlighted when the IAEA reported in May that Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% – just below weapons-grade level – had grown to more than 400kg.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian, Mr Lammy said: “Its leaders cannot explain to me – and I’ve had many conversations with them – why they need 60% enriched uranium.

“If I went to Sellafield or Urenco in Cheshire, they haven’t got anything more than 6%. The Iranians claim it’s for academic use, but I don’t accept that.”

Mr Lammy warned that Iran developing nuclear weapons could lead to an escalation of tensions in the Middle East.

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Israel and the United States carried our strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June.

“Many of your readers will have watched Oppenheimer and seen the fallout of (the US building an atomic bomb),” he said.

“So it’s what (a nuclear Iran) might mean in terms of other countries in the neighbourhood who would desire one, too. And we would be very suddenly handing over to our children and grandchildren a world that had many more nuclear weapons in it than it has today.”

The Foreign Secretary said he had heard Israeli arguments in favour of regime change in Tehran, but did not believe that was behind the US decision to strike.

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The Tottenham MP added any decision to topple the government was one for the Iranian people, with his focus “on what the UK can do to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power”.

Last month, Mr Lammy suggested that Britain, France and Germany could “snap back” on sanctions against Iran unless the country gets “serious” about stepping back from its nuclear ambitions.

He told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee: “Iran face even more pressure in the coming weeks because the E3 can snap back on our sanctions, and it’s not just our sanctions, it’s actually a UN mechanism that would impose dramatic sanctions on Iran across nearly every single front in its economy.

“So they have a choice to make. It’s a choice for them to make.

“I’m very clear about the choice they should make, but I’m also clear that the UK has a decision to make that could lead to far greater pain for the Iranian regime unless they get serious about the international desire to see them step back from their nuclear ambitions at this time.”

After Donald Trump ordered the firing of a federal government official in charge of labor statistics, experts and opposition politicians have expressed alarm that the “credibility” of US economic data was at risk.

The US president claimed without evidence that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, had “rigged” job numbers “in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad”, after data showed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that the president was “firing the messenger”.

Bill Beach, a former Heritage Foundation economist who was picked by Trump in 2018 to oversee labor statistics, denounced what he called the “totally groundless firing”.

“Politicizing economic statistics is a self-defeating act,” said Michael Madowitz, the principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute’s Roosevelt Forward, who added that “credibility is far easier to lose than rebuild, and the credibility of America’s economic data is the foundation on which we’ve built the strongest economy in the world”.

Senate Democrat Ron Wyden said “this is the act of somebody who is soft, weak and afraid to own up to the reality of the damage his chaos is inflicting on our economy”.

The move came as markets around the world were roiled by Trump’s latest tariff announcement, which left more than 60 countries scrambling to secure trade deals.

Here are the key US politics stories of the day:

Catching up? Here’s what happened 31 July 2025.

The whole world is in thrall to the whims of Donald Trump’s tariff agenda, as it has been since the 47th president of the United States’ swearing-in last January.

We’ve learned a few uncomfortable truths along the way. Much of the early outcry from America’s allies and trading partners surrounded the lack of economic logic to the imposition of tariffs – which are effectively a tax for Americans on foreign products, in theory making them less attractive to US consumers and heightening the allure of their own domestic suppliers.

Critics said that the new regime would disrupt the world economy needlessly and perhaps bring about a global recession. That may well come to pass.

The problem is that in this stand-off America has the greater wherewithal in terms of raw economic power. It holds the cards as Trump himself might say. And nations worldwide are beginning to fall into line, the EU just the latest after agreeing to a blanket 15% tariff on goods and services going forward.

After President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump agreed the trade deal, the spin is that the pain of those tariffs is worth it in order to avoid a global trade war. Also, 15% is better than 30% or worse, is the thinking. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The spin is that the pain of those tariffs is worth it in order to avoid a global trade war. Also, 15% is better than 30% or worse, is the thinking.

Whether that represents capitulation in the face of bullyboy tactics, given that little or nothing has been asked of the US in return, is a separate conversation.

Ireland’s pharmaceutical industry

Here in Ireland we have a bigger problem though, and that problem is the pharmaceutical industry. That industry contributes massively to the economy here via billions of euro in corporation tax contributions, with about 90 companies employing 50,000 people in highly-paid roles.

A total 30,000 of those jobs are with American firms.

Should foreign pharmaceutical concerns exit Ireland the impact on the country would be catastrophic. The industry globally had pleaded with Trump for it to be exempted from any tariff regime, ostensibly for altruistic reasons – that lifesaving medicines shouldn’t be subject to capricious taxation.

At an EU level, the industry asked that the bloc not apply reciprocal tariffs, one wish that has at least been granted.

Pfizer is one of the massive American pharmaceutical companies holding bases in Ireland, in this case Cork. File picture: Dan Linehan

Oddly enough, in Trump’s world of permanent grievance where everyone has been making a sucker of the United States for decades, the outsize presence the US pharmaceutical industry holds in Ireland is one situation on which he indisputably has a legitimate point.

Drug prices in the US can retail for as much as five times what an EU citizen would pay. Meanwhile, American pharma firms make a pretty penny avoiding American tax by basing themselves here. Trump’s protectionist agenda demands that those jobs and companies should return home.

The Government has been worrying about and planning for a worst-case scenario in terms of tariffs on pharmaceuticals for months.

Reaction from the pharma companies

But what of the pharma industry itself?

The official line from the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA), the industry’s lobby group here, is that it is reviewing the announcements coming out of Washington as and when they happen “as key implications for the pharmaceutical sector remain uncertain”.

A stance it’s hard to argue with given the whole world has grown used to the haphazard nature of the Trump administration’s demands.

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) notes that tariffs are “a blunt instrument that will disrupt supply chains, impact on investment in research and development, and ultimately harm patient access to medicines on both sides of the Atlantic”.

It added that if the goal is to rebalance trade and ensure a “fairer distribution” of how pharmaceutical innovation is financed, then “there are more effective means than tariffs that would help”.

Impact on pharma in Ireland

The IDA, the body with prime responsibility for attracting foreign investment to Irish shores, says of the pharma implications that it “welcomes” the deal made between Europe and the US, arguing it provides “much-needed certainty for Irish, European and American businesses who together represent the most integrated trading relationship in the world”.

“We are very much reliant (on the US market), there’s no arguing with that,” says one industry insider. Last year a massive €44bn in pharmaceutical products were exported directly from Ireland to the US.

“But when you stand back €100bn was exported globally. So half went to America, but it’s not like all business went there, though it is certainly the biggest partner,” says the source.

That doesn’t mean that those massive American companies holding bases here – MSD, Pfizer, ELI Lilly, Johnson and Johnson etc – are about to up sticks on the back of the new tariff regime.

“They are not going to leave today or tomorrow, no. But it could definitely impact future investment decisions,” the source says.

One of the problems is that a great deal of uncertainty still surrounds the 15% tariff agreement, particularly with regard to pharma.

One of the Eli Lilly production buildings at its state-of-the-art facility in Dunderrow, Kinsale, Co Cork.

For starters, most people concerned thought that the pharmaceutical industry wasn’t to be included in the deal. Then about two hours after the deal was agreed European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said it would be included, a point Trump appeared to back up.

The following day the White House produced a ‘fact sheet’ describing how the new regime would work, and affirming the 15% rate for pharma. Except that the same sheet stated that the European Union would pay the tariff – which isn’t how tariffs work.

Then there is the Section 232 investigation which the US Department of Commerce initiated into the pharma industry in April – aiming to establish if how the pharmaceutical system worldwide currently functions impacts negatively on the US from a national security standpoint.

Should the answer arrived at be a ‘yes’, then additional tariffs on pharma may well follow (such investigations typically take a minimum of six months to conclude, so we’ll probably get an answer sometime towards the end of the year).

“Pharma plans in the long-term,” says Aidan Meagher, tax partner specialising in life sciences with consultants EY, noting that most pharma manufacturers will have been planning for this scenario for months and will have frontloaded stock into the American market, thus negating immediate impacts in the near term.

He says that companies will be likely looking at ‘dual sourcing’ initiatives, supplying the American market from within the US itself and using Irish operations for its trade around the rest of the globe.

‘Ireland needs to up its game’

But Meagher says that it would be “remiss” of Ireland, and the pharma industry here, to take a ‘wait and see’ approach, perhaps with the supposition that Trump’s policies will last for the remaining three-and-a-half years of his term, and no longer.

“It is all about the next investment. A lot of these drugs only have patent protection for a certain life or longevity. Ireland needs to maintain investment and to incentivise the right kind of activity in terms of attracting that innovation,” he says.

That means thinking outside the box in terms of tax credits for research and development, and improvements to infrastructure, particularly housing, Meagher says, areas in which we are notably lagging behind in terms of international competition.

But he argues that the situation is far from a doomsday scenario.

“It’s not as simple as that, it’s a whole range of business factors that need to be considered – it’s all about impacts for specific companies,” he says.

“It’s not all necessarily doom and gloom. Companies have had plenty of time to consider this. And pharma companies are long-term thinkers. Ireland has had just two issues with the FDA (the US food and drug administration, responsible for approving new drugs) in its history.

“The country has a strong reputation. These countries have invested significantly and Ireland is the owner of a lot of valuable intellectual property.”

But it’s certainly not a time to be complacent, Meagher argues.

“We have dropped down the competitiveness radar, and our competitors now aren’t in the EU – they’re in Switzerland, Singapore and the US itself. We need to be a top competitor for inward investment, and R&D and infrastructure will be critical. That is where Ireland needs to up its game.”

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways

A Montgomery County-based nuclear reactor and fuel company will open its second facility near Frederick, as a testing ground for equipment before it is deployed in the company’s nuclear reactors.

The company X-energy will renovate the 90,000-square-foot building at 7201 McKinney Circle for its first integrated test and training facility, according to a press release Wednesday from Maryland’s Department of Commerce.

Testing in some parts of the building could begin by the end of the year, while renovations of other parts will take longer, company spokesman Jakub Lis said Thursday.

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The new Frederick facility will serve as a “proving ground” for the company’s equipment to make sure it is working correctly before it is deployed into nuclear reactors and other facilities, Lis said.

The facility will not handle or use any nuclear material.

It will include a helium test facility, to test systems and equipment in a pressurized helium space such as inside a reactor, Lis said.

The facility will also include an experimental test facility and a training facility for operators and maintenance technicians, among other elements.

The training facility will include a full-scale simulator of a plant control room, for operators of the company’s Xe-100 small modular nuclear reactor.

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That will be similar to a facility that is already at X-energy’s Plant Support Center, located on Spectrum Drive in Frederick.

That facility, which had its grand opening in 2024, includes office space and two classrooms, along with the control room simulator.

X-energy develops advanced small modular nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel technology to generate clean energy.

The company is working with Dow Chemical Company to develop an Xe-100 plant on Texas’s Gulf Coast, as well as with Amazon on another Xe-100 project in Washington state.

That project has committed to creating up to five gigawatts of new nuclear capacity by 2039.

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Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater hailed the second X-energy facility in the Commerce Department release as an investment that strengthens the county’s tech sector.

The company’s work in nuclear reactor and fuel design fits with the county’s commitment to cutting-edge industries and sustainable growth, Fitzwater said.

The Frederick County expansion comes as X-energy plans to consolidate its headquarters operations from two locations in Rockville to a 125,000-square-foot facility in Gaithersburg.

The state’s Department of Commerce is working to approve two conditional loans worth a combined $2.35 million.

When asked about the number of employees at the facility near Frederick, Lis responded in an email: “It will vary. However, the vast majority of our employees will work out of the HQ in Gaithersburg, and travel to the Frederick facility on an as-needed basis to conduct testing. While the facility itself is not expected to create large volumes of new permanent jobs immediately, it will support ongoing hiring in engineering, testing, and deployment roles.”

President Donald Trump on Friday said he deployed two nuclear submarines into tactical positions after online threats from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, escalating tensions between the two nuclear superpowers as Trump’s frustration against Moscow mounts. Trump said on social media that Medvedev’s “highly provocative statements” led him to dispatch the submarines “just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.”

“Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences,” Trump continued, capping an intensifying exchange between the two men, who have long been at odds. “I hope this will not be one of those instances.”

Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, had referenced the Soviet Union’s emergency nuclear strike capabilities in a Telegram post that told Trump to imagine the Walking Dead, an apocalyptic television series.

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Hours after the social media post, Trump said he deployed the submarines because Medvedev’s “threat” was inappropriate.

“A threat was made … so we just have to be very careful,” Trump said Friday afternoon while leaving the White House to go to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for the weekend.

“We’re going to protect our people,” he added.

Trump on Friday afternoon did not answer a question about where he had sent the subs, but in an interview with the conservative outlet Newsmax that aired hours later he said he sent them to “the region” and that “they’re closer to Russia.”

The Pentagon would not comment Friday on the deployment of resources that typically operate in secret, and experts said it was more likely that Trump intended to send a message than propel the world’s superpowers toward armed conflict. But the rare invocation of nuclear force appeared to reflect Trump’s deepening displeasure with Russia over its continued war on Ukraine. The exchange followed what Ukrainian officials said had been the deadliest Russian airstrike on the capital city this year, and came as Trump threatens to enact steep tariffs on Moscow if it does not agree to a ceasefire within 10 days.

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Trump’s post sent officials and analysts scrambling to assess the significance of the deployment. RIA Novosti, a state-controlled news agency, suggested the Russians are seeking clarity from Washington about Trump’s actions and intentions. The agency said Friday it had sent inquiries to the White House, Pentagon, U.S. Central Command and the National Security Council but had not received a response.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware), said that he planned to ask the U.S. Navy for more information. “Why would we ever signal plans to relocate nuclear submarines?” he asked.

The Pentagon typically does not reveal such details unless doing so sends a message or deters conflict, said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel focused on security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

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The U.S. submarine fleet can conduct both cruise and ballistic missile strikes but those vessels cannot launch interceptors — so in the case of Russia’s threats, their presence would be primarily to deter or to provide counterstrike options, Cancian said, calling the president’s announcement Friday “signaling in its purest form.”

The U.S. fleet could also be positioned to counter Russian ballistic missile submarines if those moved out, but would not be able to fire and take down an incoming ballistic missile, he said.

Medvedev, who has repeatedly served as a pro-Kremlin antagonist online, first drew Trump’s ire earlier this week when responding to his accelerated ceasefire deadline, alleging on social media that he was “playing the ultimatum game” with Russia.

“He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran,” Medvedev wrote on X. “2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country. Don’t go down the Sleepy Joe road!”

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Trump kept targeting Russia in posts on his social media network, deriding both India and Russia as “dead” economies early Thursday morning.

“Likewise, Russia and the USA do almost no business together. Let’s keep it that way, and tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still President, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!” Trump wrote.

On Thursday, Medvedev prodded Trump, saying that if comments from a former Russian president could cause such a “nervous reaction” from the American president, then Russia was right to approach negotiations with Ukraine on its own terms.

“And about the ‘dead economy’ of India and Russia and ‘entering dangerous territory’ — well, let [Trump] remember … how dangerous the famous ‘Dead Hand’ can be,” Medvedev added, referring to a Russian doomsday program with the ability to automatically launch a nuclear counterstrike.

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Some cautioned restraint Friday, noting that Medvedev often made statements on social media widely regarded as problematic and unserious. “When you see his latest apocalyptic tweet about turning European capitals to dust, remember: this isn’t strategic communication from the Kremlin. It’s the rambling of a man drowning his terror in vodka,” said Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s onetime richest man, who is now an opposition leader living in London.

Trump has increasingly turned toward Ukraine this year as he loses patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s continued bombardment of Ukraine. On Friday, former U.S. ambassador to Moscow Mike McFaul on X advised him to keep his focus there. “If Trump wants to get Medvedev’s attention he should give Ukraine new weapons,” McFaul said. “Moving nuclear armed subs is the wrong approach.”

On Friday, Ukrainian officials said the death toll in Kyiv from a Russian aerial bombardment the day before had nearly doubled overnight to at least 31, as more bodies were pulled from under rubble. As the grim recovery operations continued, Germany announced it would provide two Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine in the coming days and that Berlin would be at the top of a list to receive new-model replacements from the United States.

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Ukraine has pleaded with its Western supporters for more air defenses amid unrelenting Russian missile and drone attacks.

Among the dead were five children, the youngest 2 years old, and 159 were injured, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on Telegram. He said that in July alone, Russian forces launched about 3,800 drones, 260 missiles — including 128 ballistic missiles — and 5,100 guided bombs.

Zelensky called the overnight attack on Thursday “a vile blow” and said it demonstrated that additional pressure on Moscow was needed and that Ukraine’s Western allies should tighten their sanctions regime against the Kremlin. President Donald Trump has been threatening to do just that.

“No matter how much the Kremlin denies their effectiveness, [the sanctions] are working and must be stronger — to hit everything that allows such strikes to continue,” Zelensky wrote, after receiving a report on the strike from Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.

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Trump appears ready to slap additional sanctions on Moscow in a bid to pressure Russia to accept a ceasefire. On Thursday, Trump called the airstrikes on Ukraine “disgusting” and “a disgrace,” though he questioned whether sanctions would influence Putin.

“I don’t know that sanctions bother him,” he said. “I don’t know if that has any effect, but we’re going to do it.”

The Patriot transfer to Ukraine was made possible by an agreement with the United States that Germany would be “the first nation to receive newly produced, latest-generation Patriot systems at an accelerated pace,” which Berlin would pay for, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in a statement.

The delivery to Ukraine would also include “additional system components within the next two to three months,” Pistorius said.

Ukrainian officials have not commented on the German transfer. However, Patriot antiaircraft systems are highly valued for their ability to shoot down cruise and ballistic missiles, which Russian forces have been firing at Ukrainian targets in clusters, combined with waves of drones, to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.

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Trump also has been threatening secondary sanctions that would penalize buyers of Russian oil, mainly China and India, potentially starving Russia of funds for its war machine, but so far he has refrained from imposing them, arguing this could alienate Moscow and reduce hopes of reaching a peace deal.

Russia, meanwhile, has launched deadly attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, while grinding forward and seizing more territory in eastern Ukraine. Russia has struck playgrounds, maternity hospitals, apartment buildings, civilian buses and other civilian targets. Russia’s Ministry of Defense insists that Russia attacks military targets with “precision strikes.”

Earlier in the week, Trump tightened the deadline to 10 days from 50 days for Russia to agree a ceasefire with Ukraine or face new sanctions. Trump said that his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, would fly to Russia to meet with officials after visiting Gaza and Israel.

Witkoff has met Putin four times in solo meetings in a bid to broker a peace deal, eschewing State Department experts on Russia, and using an interpreter supplied by the Kremlin on at least one occasion. He initially appeared to credit Putin with a will to end the war in return for keeping the territory Russia has seized and shutting Ukraine out of NATO. Those hopes proved overly optimistic.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a radio interview that senior U.S. officials were in contact with their Russian counterparts this week but made “no progress” on securing a ceasefire.

Trump has suggested that he is losing patience with Putin after phone conversations in which Putin appeared conciliatory, only to launch new airstrikes, while Ukraine has accepted Trump’s call for a ceasefire, Rubio suggested.

“And I think what bothers the president the most is he has these great phone calls where everyone … claims, ‘Yeah, we’d like to see this end, if we could find a way forward,’ and then he turns on the news and another city has been bombed, including those far from the front lines,” Rubio said.

On Friday, Putin said that any disappointments in the progress of peace talks arose from “excessive expectations.”

“Negotiations are always in demand and always important, especially if it is a desire for peace. I evaluate them positively overall,” Putin told journalists after meeting Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at Valaam island in Karelia, in northwest Russia.

Putin said Russia’s conditions had not changed, saying Russia needed “a lasting and durable peace on good basic foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine and would guarantee security of both countries.”