The world’s most powerful and polarising politician will inevitably attract threats from his opponents. Donald Trump has faced several credible assassination plots since returning to office, partly triggered by a more aggressive foreign policy approach in his second term.

Just this week it emerged that the US leader was smuggled out of Air Force One in a catering truck to escape an Iranian assassination threat when he visited the Nato summit in Ankara last month.

Trump has faced several attempts on his life within his own country too, including during his election campaign in 2024 and during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April this year.

Below we look at all the credible threats the president has faced from foreign-affiliated actors.

‘Money is not an issue’: Afghan man recruited to find hit squad to kill Trump

In 2024, Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national and Iranian government operative, was accused of hiring two New Yorkers he met in prison to carry out an assassination plot against a critic of the Iranian regime amid rising tensions between the US and Tehran.

While in detention, he admitted to FBI agents that he’d also been recruited to find a hit squad to kill the then president-elect Trump. He was charged over the alleged plot in November 2024.

The former New York resident claimed he was asked by regime officials in September 2024 to “put aside his other efforts… and focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump,” according to a criminal complaint presented in a Manhattan federal court.

Shakeri countered that the scheme would cost a “huge” amount of money, to which his regime contact replied, “[W]e have already spent a lot of money .. . [s]o the money’s not an issue.” He claimed he was given a deadline of mid-October.

In January, Carlisle Rivera – one of the New Yorkers recruited by Shakeri – was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the plot to murder US citizen of Iranian origin Masih Alinejad, a journalist, author, and human rights activist.

“I’m just a woman,” Alinejad said after the sentencing. “My weapon is my voice. My weapon is my social media.”

Jonathan Loadholt, 37, was sentenced to 10 years in March this year.

Iranian spokesperson Esmail Baghaei dismissed the reports at the time alleging they were part of an Israeli-linked plot to disrupt talks between the US and Tehran.

In April this year, Pete Hegseth claimed that the US had killed an Iranian official linked to the assassination plot but did not name the person.

Trump threatens to ‘obliterate Iran’ amid reports of assassination plots

There were reports of Iranian plots last year too, with the US leader saying he had instructed his administration to destroy Iran if it happened.

“If they did that they would be obliterated,” Trump told reporters when asked about the threats. “I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”

He reiterated his instructions in July this year, saying that “if anything happens” he has told his government to “literally bomb them at levels they’ve never seen before”.

Business owner hired by IRGC caught by FBI staging killing on napkin

Trump had another close call when Pakistani business owner Asif Merchant admitted he had attempted to hire hitmen to assassinate the US leader.

He told a US court that he planned to initiate the assassination during the 2024 presidential campaign but American investigators disrupted the plot before it could succeed.

Merchant said he was carrying out instructions from a contact in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He said that his handler never mentioned a specific target but broached names including Trump who was a candidate at the time, then-president Joe Biden and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley.

He was captured after using objects on a napkin to depict a shooting at a rally to an acquaintance but was instead introduced to undercover FBI agents who had secretly been recording him.

The Iranian government has denied trying to kill U.S. officials.

“This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement released after the conviction.

The news came days after US-Israeli strikes on Iran that sparked the current conflict.

Trump hides in catering truck amid Israeli reports of assassination plot

The latest incident occurred during last month’s Nato summit in Ankara.

It came after reports during that same month that Israeli officials had uncovered an Iranian plot to kill the president, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on 9 July.

As Trump himself has admitted, he was secretly transported away from Turkey via a ruse involving Air Force One, a catering truck and a second military decoy plane as part of an elaborate “deception operation” after an Iranian assassination threat came to light.

Journalists and several White House personnel had believed they would be traveling with Trump on his return journey to Washington but he was instead smuggled out of the presidential plane and put on board another aircraft .

“I go by Secret Service and the military,” Trump said on Tuesday. “They wanted me to go in a different flight, different plane. I just have to do what they say.”

“As the president has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats,” White House Communication Director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

Toilet waste escorted back to US

During the Turkey visit he also went to extreme lengths to protect himself abroad, including reportedly having his human waste carried back from Turkey to prevent any intelligence-gathering about his health, according to The Guardian.

Taking 1,400 staff members with him, including those responsible for transporting the waste, the procedure is reportedly a standard part of the security surrounding the president. Other world leaders including Russian leader Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un take similar precautions.

Social media threats to wife Melania and son Barron

Trump’s wife Melania and son Barron have also been targeted in Iranian propaganda videos including one in July titled “Where to kill Melania” featuring the First Lady in the crosshairs of a gun, as well as an ominous threat ordering their 20-year-old son to “wait for us”.

It appeared to show locations Melania frequently visits and instructions on how to assassinate her. She later opted to skip the White House Correspondents Dinner.

The clip, shared by Tasnim news agency, which is associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was being investigated by the US Secret Service.

It was not the first time they faced calls for their death – a billboard depicting portraits of Trump, Melania and several of the president’s children above coffins draped in American flags was spotted in Tehran’s Palestine Square in July.

Response to assassinations ordered by Trump

Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in 2020, sparking condemnation and concern including from Iraqi politicians, the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres as well as US academic Noam Chomsky who called it “an extraordinarily dangerous act”. Soleimani was subsequently revered for his martyrdom across Iran after the killing.

In February 2026, Trump joined forces with Israel to assassinate supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in his compound sparking the ongoing war with Iran.

He has since openly boasted about the deaths of officials in the Iranian government. One of its highest ranking officials, Ali Larijani, had tweeted ominous social media posts threatening the US leader to which Trump had responded: “I couldn’t care less”, before Larijani was killed by the Israeli military.