Trump imposes 25% tariff on countries doing business with Iran

Trump said on Sunday that Iranian officials had reached out seeking talks on a nuclear deal and said the United States may meet with them after repeatedly warning Tehran against killing demonstrators and mooting "very strong" military options.

Former British Army officer and military analyst Andrew Fox told Iran International that the Islamic Republic is deliberately applying maximum force early to crush the protests before Washington can act decisively.

“If (Trump) limits his intervention to just rhetoric, then clearly that is, of course, strategic restraint, but also an absolute betrayal at a critical moment,” Fox said.

“He’s made promises. It’s very clear that there were promises that the Americans were not ready to deliver.”

Trump, in a post on Truth Social last week, warned that the United States is “locked and loaded” and ready to intervene in Iran if authorities violently suppress demonstrators — statements that analysts say emboldened many to take to the streets.

“It’s questionable that this many people would have protested had Mr. Trump not made those promises,” Fox said. “So at the moment,” he added, “America potentially has blood on its hands quite frankly.”

Publicly, Iranian officials struck a defiant tone. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran was open to negotiations but also “fully prepared for war,” insisting the situation inside the country was under control.

Behind the scenes, however, US officials say Tehran is sending a different message.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said an Iranian official had reached out to US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff “expressing a far different tone than what you’re seeing publicly.”

Axios earlier reported a phone call between Araghchi and Witkoff during which the two sides discussed both the protests and Iran’s nuclear program.

On the ground, the crackdown has intensified amid a near-total internet shutdown.

Medics and eyewitnesses told Iran International that the preliminary death toll over more than two weeks of unrest had surged in recent days to as many as 2,000 people.

The full scale remains impossible to verify due to communications blackouts.

New evidence suggests the state response is being conducted as a wartime operation.

A physician who treated large numbers of wounded protesters described mass-casualty conditions, overwhelmed hospitals, and the use of live ammunition and military-grade weapons by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij forces according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran.

The doctor said security forces operated under orders that eliminated accountability and treated civilian protests as a battlefield scenario, with injured protesters systematically identified inside hospitals and communications deliberately shut down.

To intervene or not?

Trump’s own mixed messaging, analysts say, risks compounding the damage.

“President Trump’s comments on Air Force One contained something for everyone in them,” said Jason Brodsky, the policy director for United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), pointing to the combination of military threats, diplomacy with Tehran and outreach to the opposition.

While unpredictability can have tactical benefits, Brodsky warned that a US meeting with Iran’s leadership now “will provide relief for the regime.”

“It can prop-up the currency while demoralizing the Iranian freedom fighters on the ground,” he said. “There is great benefit for Iran in a negotiating process with the US. But no benefit for the US.”

Such talks, Brodsky said, would be “perceived by the Iranian people as external American intervention on the side of the Islamic Republic, not the Iranian people.”

“We should be giving time, space, and resources to the Iranian people,” he said, “not the Islamic Republic.”

Confidence that US military action was imminent has meanwhile begun to waver.

“Do I believe President Trump will strike Iran? Yesterday I was more confident of an attack, today, not quite as much,” said Dr. Eric Mandel, director of the Middle East Political Information Network (MEPIN).

Mandel said he had spoken with Israeli analysts saying they were confident Trump would strike but “did not know sooner or later.”

He said Washington still retains options short of a full-scale war, including seizing oil tankers tied to Iran’s shadow fleet exporting more than two million barrels of oil a day, CIA covert actions, cyber operations, kinetic action against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij and restoring communications through satellite internet systems such as Starlink.

Trump said Sunday he would speak to Elon Musk about restoring internet access in Iran.

As the death toll rises and Iran remains largely cut off from the outside world, analysts warn the moment for measures is rapidly disappearing.

What comes next, they say, will determine not only the fate of Iran’s uprising — but whether US warnings are remembered as deterrence or as words that raised hope just long enough to deepen a sense of betrayal.

Exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi said in an interview with CBS aired on Monday he is in direct communication with the Trump administration, calling the result a possible game-changer.

“I think the president said it best. He said, you know, we'll see what happens. And I think part of the consideration is that they already know what we propose as an alternative, as a transition,” Pahlavi said in response to a question about his contact with the Trump administration.

“Any campaign of liberation has occurred when the world finally took the side of those people vis-à-vis oppressive regimes,” Pahlavi said, citing the end of apartheid in South Africa and the fall of the Soviet Union as precedents. “Iran should not be the exception.”

“In fact, the game-changer for the whole region is Iran. And Iranians are fighting this fight, not just to liberate themselves. They know that as a result of Iran's liberation, the whole world would breathe easier,” Pahlavi added.

“Unlike this regime that has always hated America and its allies, Iranian people are supportive and want to be a friend of America and the rest of the world, of course.”

"This is a glimpse into the horrifying bloodshed waged under the cover of darkness by the Iranian authorities since they imposed a nationwide internet shutdown on 8 January," Amnesty International said in a post on X, along with a video of body bags in Kahrizak, southern Tehran, which Amnesty says reveal the scale of bloodshed.

"Speak out against the deadly crackdown. Protesters in Iran need global solidarity."

Informed sources told Iran International that security forces in parts of Tehran started door-to-door operations on Monday, removing satellite dishes and confiscating recordings from private CCTV cameras.

These actions are taking place amid a complete internet blackout and severe disruption to phone networks nationwide that started on January 8, leaving satellite channels as almost the only source of updates.

Agents posed as water and electricity officials to enter homes and seize satellite dishes, residents told Iran International.

Iran has entered its fifth day of a nationwide internet shutdown. NetBlocks said the blackout had reached 100 hours on Monday evening local time.

The loss of internet and phone access has left families inside and outside Iran increasingly cut off from one another. Many people have been unable to contact loved ones, heightening public anxiety and fear, according to messages sent to Iran International.

Protesters disable CCTV cameras

Despite the restrictions, limited footage that has reached the outside world shows protests continuing in several cities.

Videos sent to Iran International show protesters disabling CCTV cameras in Karaj, Alborz province; Mahallat, Markazi province; and Pakdasht, Tehran province.

One video from Karaj, shows a protester disabling a CCTV camera amid a crowd.

Other footage from Mahallat, in central Iran’s Markazi province, shows protesters lighting fires in the street and taking surveillance cameras offline.

A separate video from the funeral of Khodadad Shirvani, a protester killed in Marvdasht, Fars province, shows a mourner disabling a security camera as the crowd chants slogans against the government.

In another video from Pakdasht, southeast of Tehran, a resident says: “Out of fear of the people, they are installing cameras again.”

What began in late December 2025 as protests over economic hardship—initially centered on Tehran’s bazaar and spreading through strikes—has since transformed into a far broader uprising, with demonstrators increasingly calling for an end to theocratic rule.

The unrest has been met with sweeping force, including mass arrests and the use of live ammunition, as authorities imposed near-total internet blackouts to obscure the scale of the crackdown.

Western governments have hardened their stance as the scale of the crackdown has become clearer, with US President Donald Trump vowing to hit Iran “very hard” if repression continued.

In this environment, Russia has remained persistent in its backing of Tehran.

A Times report last week even suggested that supreme leader Ali Khamenei might flee to Russia should his rule be seriously threatened.

While such scenarios cannot be entirely dismissed, they remain speculative and, above all, ideologically improbable.

Khamenei’s legitimacy is deeply rooted in his personal commitment to the ideological tenets of the Islamic Revolution and to the principle of revolutionary endurance.

This stance sharply differentiates him from other segments of the Islamic Republic’s establishment, notably economic and technocratic elites, for whom exit options and external safeguards may constitute a rational form of risk management.

Whether grounded in concrete planning or not, the persistence of such narratives nonetheless underscores how closely external partnerships—especially with Russia—are now perceived to be intertwined with the regime’s internal resilience and survival calculations.

The perception that Moscow backs repression—and offers sanctuary if it fails—may be influencing the calculations of Iran’s ruling elite, hardening the loyalists’ resolve while quietly expanding the exit options available to those at the apex of power.

Material support

Moscow's backing reflects not merely tactical convenience but a deeper strategic convergence rooted in shared opposition to Western norms of governance and intervention.

For Russia—strained by its war in Ukraine and declining influence elsewhere—Iran represents one of the few remaining pillars of resistance to what the Kremlin portrays as an increasingly assertive liberal international order.

Material cooperation lies at the core of this relationship.

While there is no publicly confirmed reporting of Russian military airlifts tied directly to the current protest wave, the depth of the Moscow-Tehran partnership is evident in joint ventures such as Iran’s recent satellite launches aboard Russian rockets and a series of long-term bilateral cooperation agreements.

Together, these developments form the geopolitical backdrop to the current unrest.

Learning repression

Officially framed as security and counterterrorism cooperation, the partnership has also involved political learning and technological convergence.

Iran’s security apparatus has increasingly adopted surveillance practices similar to those used by Russia to manage domestic dissent, including facial-recognition technologies, large-scale data aggregation and advanced communications monitoring that allow security forces to identify and disrupt protest networks with greater precision.

This convergence is reinforced by doctrinal exchanges and intelligence coordination involving the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Russian experience in sanctions evasion, electronic warfare and information control has proved valuable to Tehran as it seeks to preserve coercive capacity under mounting economic pressure.

Moscow’s support has become an increasingly important component of Tehran’s ability to contain a protest movement that challenges not only economic governance but the ideological foundations of the Islamic Republic.

Elite calculations

That external backing does not affect all factions within Iran’s power structure equally.

Tehran’s most ideologically committed forces—particularly within the IRGC and the security services—are widely expected to resist collapse at almost any cost.

For these actors, collapse would not simply mean loss of office but could entail prosecution, exile or worse. Their commitment to repression is therefore existential, reinforced by decades of indoctrination and deeply entrenched interests in a closed political system.

By contrast, Iran’s economic oligarchy, though deeply intertwined with the state, appears far less ideologically anchored.

Composed of business elites, semi-private conglomerates and networks enriched through privileged access to state resources, this group has long hedged its political bets.

As the crisis deepens, many are likely to seek exit strategies rather than confrontation. Unlike the ideological core, they possess the financial means and transnational connections to adapt quickly.

In the event of a fundamental political change in Iran, such actors would likely shift allegiances or secure settlement abroad.

Diplomatic protection

Beyond material assistance, Russia also provides Tehran with diplomatic shielding.

In multilateral forums, Moscow has consistently portrayed Iran’s repression as a legitimate exercise of sovereignty in response to foreign-backed destabilization.

This posture has taken on renewed urgency following the dramatic detention of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US forces—a development that sent shockwaves through governments closely aligned with Russia.

Maduro’s removal represented a setback for Moscow, depriving it of a partner whose geographic proximity to the United States offered a rare opportunity to project influence in Washington’s immediate neighborhood.

Iran’s strategic value to Russia is significant but different. While Tehran’s regional reach and energy leverage matter, its geography does not offer Moscow comparable proximity to US power.

As a result, Russia’s investment in Iran—though politically and symbolically important—appears constrained by a lack of capacity to challenge American influence within its own hemisphere.

Russia has nonetheless intensified its diplomatic defense of Tehran, blocking or diluting resolutions on human rights abuses and portraying Iranian protests as externally engineered “color revolutions.”

Shaping Tehran’s calculus

Russian state media has reinforced Tehran’s preferred narrative, emphasizing sanctions and alleged foreign interference while downplaying corruption, elite predation and long-standing structural mismanagement.

Equally significant is narrative coordination through non-Western platforms such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, where Russia and Iran have worked to recast unrest as foreign-driven destabilization, emphasizing sovereignty, non-intervention and resistance to “hybrid warfare.”

By signaling that diplomatic backing—and potentially sanctuary—remain available, Moscow reinforces the resolve of ideological hardliners while quietly widening the options available to those at the apex of power.

In this sense, Iran’s internal crisis has become embedded in wider international security networks.

For Moscow, supporting Tehran is not only about regional influence but about defending the principle that political systems can withstand sustained popular challenge through transnational cooperation.

As protests in Iran continue with no clear resolution, their outcome will resonate far beyond the country’s borders, testing the balance between state resilience and popular sovereignty in an increasingly polarized international order.