Iran latest: Trump orders 25% tariff on any country doing business with Tehran – UK Times

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has told reporters that airstrikes are among the “many, many options” that president Donald Trump is considering but that “diplomacy is always the first option for the president”.

Trump on Sunday said Iranian officials have reached out for talks. He has threatened to take military action against the Islamic Republic for its crackdown on the protests.

“What you’re hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” Leavitt said.

“However, with that said, the president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran.”The US last year bombed Iranian nuclear sites when it inserted itself into the 12-day war between Israel and Iran.

The top diplomats for Iran and Britain have traded sharp statements after speaking by phone.

UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said she told Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi that Iran must halt the violence aimed at its people.

She wrote on X that the killing and repression of peaceful protesters is “horrific”.

Araghchi responded by saying the UK should stay out of Iran’s internal affairs. He also criticised security at the Iranian embassy in London, where a demonstrator on Saturday scaled a wall and replaced the Islamic Republic’s flag with the banner flown before the Western-backed shah was overthrown in 1979.

“If the UK cannot uphold its duty to protect diplomatic missions, Iran would be left with no choice but to consider evacuating our personnel,” Araghchi said.

President Donald Trump said on Monday that Iran’s trade partners will face 25 per cent tariffs from the United States as he looks to pressure Tehran over its violent protest crackdown that’s left at least 646 dead across the country.

The US president has repeatedly threatened Tehran with US military action, if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against anti-government protesters.

It’s a redline that Trump says he believes Iran is “starting to cross” and has left him and his national security team weighing “very strong options.

“Trump announced the tariffs in a social media posting, saying they would be “effective immediately.”

China, Brazil, Turkey and Russia are among economies that do business with Tehran.

In New Zealand, two people were arrested on Tuesday during a protest outside the Iranian embassy in Wellington, authorities said.

About 20 people protested outside the embassy, while police officers monitored the situation, the police said in a statement. Officers were considering willful damage charges against the pair arrested.

“Police recognise the lawful right to protest, and maintained a presence to ensure the safety of all involved,” a statement said.

Radio New Zealand reported that a man climbed onto a fence at the embassy to erect a pre-1979 Iranian flag, before it was removed by someone from inside the embassy.

Meanwhile, foreign ministry officials in Wellington have reminded New Zealanders of advice that they shouldn’t travel to Iran and should leave immediately if they are there. The advisory has been in place since November 2024.

Activists said the death toll from the ongoing protests in Iran has reached at least 646.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years, gave the latest death toll early on Tuesday.

It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information.

It said 512 of the dead were protesters and 134 were members of the security forces.

More than 10,700 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the agency.

As the nationwide internet shutdown in Iran enters its fifth day, reports from inside the country indicate that protests are ongoing and expanding, while security forces have stepped up their crackdown. Daily life, communications and economic activity have been severely disrupted.

NetBlocks, the global internet-monitoring organisation, said on Saturday morning that Iran remains completely disconnected from the global internet network, leaving millions of people unable to access information, contact family and relatives, or to check in on the safety of loved ones.

Local sources report that alongside the “international internet” shutdown in which access to the global internet network is cut off, severe restrictions have also been imposed on mobile networks. In some areas, even the so-called “national internet” has gone offline which allows users access to approved local and official sites and apps.

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According to the Iran Human Rights group, Rubina Aminian, 23, was killed on 8 January after leaving Shariati College in Tehran, the nation’s capital, and joining protest gatherings.

Sources close to her family told Norway-based Iran Human Rights that Aminian, who was a student of textile and fashion design, was shot from behind at close range, with the bullet striking her head.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that the world had to help Iranians build on protests to engineer change to free them from rule that brought evil to their own and other countries, including Ukraine.

Zelensky, speaking in his nightly video address, described the nationwide protests gripping Iran as an “uprising”.

He said the unrest showed that Russia had to rethink its close links with Iran, which have included its wide use of Iranian-made “Shahed” drones in the nearly four-year-old war against Kyiv.

“Every normal person on Earth very much wants the people of Iran to finally be fortunate enough to free themselves from the regime that exists there and that has brought so much evil, including to Ukraine and to other countries,” Zelensky said.

“It is important that the world not miss this moment, when change is possible. Every leader, every country, international organisations must engage now and help people remove those who are responsible for Iran unfortunately being what it has been.”

The “usual suspects” – Russia and China – would reap geopolitical benefits from Iran continuing to be a pariah state. Tehran has to sell its oil at a discount to China, and provides up to a quarter of its needs, more important than ever after the Venezuelan crisis. For Putin, a repressive Iran also keeps an energy-rich authoritarian state like Kazakhstan hemmed in and without access to world markets.

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The U.S. have instructed their citizens to leave Iran immediately, as tensions escalate between the two countries after two weeks of unrest has seen over 600 protesters killed by Iranian regime.

In an update on their website, the U.S. Department of State says: “Do not travel to Iran for any reason. U.S. citizens in Iran should leave immediately. There is no U.S. Embassy in Iran.

“U.S. citizens in Iran face serious dangers including terrorism, unrest, kidnapping, arbitrary arrest, and wrongful detention. Some U.S. nationals have been held for years on false charges, subjected to torture, and even sentenced to death.