US President Donald Trump began the New Year by sending an angry, early morning tweet saying it was “time for change in Iran and criticising Pakistan for its “lies and deceit”.

Mr Trump tweeted: “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

It was not immediately clear why Mr Trump opted to tweet on Pakistan.

The US has long accused Islamabad of allowing militants to operate relatively freely in Pakistan’s border regions to carry out operations in neighbouring Afghanistan.


Donald J. Trump
✔
@RealDonaldTrump
The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!


Donald J. Trump
✔
@RealDonaldTrump
What a year it’s been, and we're just getting started. Together, we are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Happy New Year!! pic.twitter.com/qsMNyN1UJG


Donald J. Trump
✔
@RealDonaldTrump
Iran is failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the Obama Administration. The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years. They are hungry for food & for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted. TIME FOR CHANGE!

Soon after his Pakistan tweet, Mr Trump also said it was “time for change” in Iran and that the country’s people were “hungry” for freedom, after days of deadly protests against the government in Tehran.

“Iran is failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the Obama Administration,” Trump tweeted, referring to the nuclear pact sealed under his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama.

“The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years. They are hungry for food & for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted. TIME FOR CHANGE!”

Mr Trump has been vocal on Twitter about the protests in Iran since they erupted last week.

“The world is watching!” he said, reposting clips of his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September.

“Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice,” he tweeted, quoting from the speech.

But Iranian President Hassan Rouhani hit back, saying the US leader — whose “whole being is against the nation of Iran — had “no right” to sympathise with protesters.

Ten people were killed overnight in Iran, local media reported, bringing the death toll after four days of protests to 12.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has fought back at Trump, saying the US has given it “nothing but invective and mistrust”.

“[Pakistan] as anti-terror ally has given free to US: land & air communication, military bases & intel cooperation that decimated Al-Qaeda over last 16yrs, but they have given us nothing but invective & mistrust,” Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khurram Dastgir-Khan, said on Twitter.

“They overlook cross-border safe havens of terrorists who murder Pakistanis,” he added.

The New York Times recently reported that the Trump administration was considering withholding $225 million in aid from Pakistan over the country’s handling of terrorism.

The uneasy relationship between the United States and Pakistan has been on a downward spiral since the 2011 US operation that located and killed Osama bin Laden in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, about 118 kilometres from the capital Islamabad.

Mr Trump ratcheted up the pressure last year when he announced his Afghan strategy that called out Pakistan for harbouring Afghan Taliban insurgents warning it would have to end.

Earlier, Mr Trump and family bid farewell to 2017 with a lavish party at Ma-a-Lago, predicting 2018 will be a “tremendous year.”

He said that the US stock market will continue to rise and that companies are going to continue to come into the US, at “a rapid clip.” He also cited several accomplishments, including the tax overhaul, opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, and repealing the individual mandate from the national health care law.

“It will be a fantastic 2018,” a tuxedoed Mr Trump said, as he entered the gilt ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump and son Barron.