Acting PM Winston Peters would fire officials for monitoring Donald Trump's tweets

Acting Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters is refusing to be drawn into the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran.

President Donald Trump has sent one of his most provocative tweets yet, warning the Iranian President in capital letters: "NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE."

But perhaps taking inspiration from Mr Trump in his former role on The Apprentice, Mr Peters says if he caught one of his staff checking the President's Twitter he'd "have them fired".

The warning shot to President Rouhani is the latest inflammatory tweet from Mr Trump's account, which he has become notorious for.

Newshub asked Mr Peters for his reaction to the tweet. He hadn't seen it, so it was read to him.

"You're reading out something that I haven't seen, I'm not going to come down here and respond to something I haven't seen," he said.

Media then offered to show it to him.

"With the greatest respect, that's still not evidence of a fact," he said.

Mr Peters then suggested Mr Trump may not have been the author of the tweet, asking, "How do I know he put it out? It's clear a lot of Mr Trump's tweets are not put out by him, that's surely obvious."

He said while it sounded like him, he would not respond because he didn't know it was him for a fact.

As for Mr Peters' Twitter account, don't expect to hear from the man himself on there. He appears to leave that to his advisers.

Mr Peters is famous for saying he does not do diplomacy by megaphone or via the media.

But Mr Trump on the other hand uses Twitter as a megaphone, with the latest tweet a response to Iran saying that going to war with the country would be the mothers of all wars.

Mr Peters could choose to ignore the tweet and seems loathe to become involved in US politics, but this is one of the most inflammatory and concerning tweets that's been seen from the President to date.

Perhaps it is time the Foreign Affairs Minister did check out that Twitter feed.

Newshub.