Donald Trump made a dramatic exit from the G7 summit in Canada and then hunkered down with his National Security Council in the White House situation room to plot his next moves on Iran.

Then on Wednesday he was asked by reporters whether he was about to send his bombers into action.

“I may do it. I may not do it,” he said on the South Lawn after chatting with construction workers putting up a 27-metre flagpole.

“I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble.”

It is a familiar playbook.