Iran on Monday demanded the UN's top court suspend US nuclear-linked sanctions against Tehran, accusing Washington of plotting its "economic strangulation".

President Donald Trump's administration has rejected Turkey's offer to condition the release of an American pastor on clearing a top Turkish bank of billions of dollars in US fines, media reported Monday.

Shots were fired at a security booth outside the U.S. Embassy in Turkey's capital early Monday, but U.S. officials said no one was hurt.

Private Ihlas news agency said four to five rounds were fired from a moving white car and targeted the booth outside Gate 6 at the embassy in Ankara. Police were searching for the car.

Business economists overwhelmingly worry President Donald Trump's trade wars will harm the US economy, according to a survey released Monday.

The Trump administration on Thursday is due to impose its latest round of punitive tariffs on China, putting 25 percent duties on another $16 billion in imports, with Beijing poised to retaliate dollar-for-dollar.

North Korean state media blamed Donald Trump's political opponents for the "deadlock" over denuclearisation on Saturday, urging the US President to act boldly to make progress on the thorny issue.

Trump and the North's leader Kim Jong Un held a groundbreaking summit in Singapore in June, which the US leader touted as a historic breakthrough.

Former CIA directors and another half dozen of America's most senior spies have issued an unprecedented condemnation of President Donald Trump, after his decision to blacklist their colleague John Brennan.

Turkey on Friday threatened to respond if the United States levied further sanctions over the detention of an American pastor, which has sparked a diplomatic standoff and battered the Turkish currency. 

The crisis in US-Turkish relations, which already has put Turkey's economy under massive strain, also risks souring military ties between the two NATO allies, unleashing unknown geopolitical consequences.

From the time of his electoral campaign, Donald Trump was one of the biggest opponents of Iran and the hard-won nuclear agreement, which he tore up in May.

China lashed out at the US Thursday, the day before a trade war is set to erupt between the world's top two economies, saying that Washington is effectively "firing at itself".