US President Donald Trump’s threat to put a 25% tariff on exports from any country that does business with Iran has the potential to destroy the trade truce that he signed with China.
Indeed, it could also seriously impact US trade with a handful of other countries, some of whom are regarded as friends or allies of the US, such as India, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Trump put a post on Truth Social on Monday (US time) that said: “Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America. This Order is final and conclusive,” he said without giving any further detail.
ALSO SEE: Bets on Snap Election Push Japanese Stocks to Record High
The Chinese embassy in Washington criticized Trump’s approach, saying China will take “all necessary measures” to safeguard its interests and opposed is “any illicit unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction.”
And Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning also made a short comment at a press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday, which suggested that China is somewhat dumbstruck – and unsure how to respond – to the latest outburst from the US leader.
“China’s position on the tariff issue is very clear: there are no winners in a tariff war, and China will firmly safeguard its own legitimate and lawful rights and interests.”
World awaits Trump’s next move
But all eyes will be on Washington to see what Trump does next, amid speculation that the US could intervene if the conservative regime in Tehran steps up its attacks on protesters.
Iran – which is a member of the OPEC oil producers’ group, has been heavily sanctioned by Washington for years – exports a lot of its oil to China, Turkey, Iraq, the UAE and India.
Reuters said there was no official documentation from the White House of the policy on its website, nor information on what legal authority Trump would use to impose the tariffs, or whether they would be aimed at all of Iran’s trading partners. And the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
“China’s position against the indiscriminate imposition of tariffs is consistent and clear. Tariff wars and trade wars have no winners, and coercion and pressure cannot solve problems,” a spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in Washington said on X.
Japan and South Korea, which agreed on trade deals with the US last year, said on Tuesday they are closely monitoring the development.
“We … plan to take any necessary measures once the specific actions of the US government become clear,” South Korea’s trade ministry said in a statement.
Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki told reporters that Tokyo will “carefully examine the specific content of any measures as they become clear, as well as their potential impact on Japan, and will respond appropriately.”
Iran, which had a 12-day war with US ally Israel last year and whose nuclear facilities the US military bombed in June, is seeing its biggest anti-government demonstrations in years.
Trump has said the US may meet Iranian officials and that he was in contact with Iran’s opposition, while piling pressure on its leaders, including threatening military action.
Iran’s warning on US ‘targets’
Tehran said on Monday it was keeping communication channels with Washington open as Trump considered how to respond to the situation in Iran, which has posed one of the gravest tests of clerical rule in the country since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Demonstrations evolved from complaints about dire economic hardships to defiant calls for the fall of the deeply entrenched clerical establishment.
During the course of his second term in office, Trump has often threatened and imposed tariffs on other countries over their ties with US adversaries and over trade policies that he has described as unfair to Washington.
But Trump’s trade policy is under legal pressure, as the US Supreme Court is considering striking down a broad swathe of Trump’s existing tariffs.
Iran exported products to 147 trading partners in 2022, according to World Bank’s most recent data.
Trump said on Sunday he said the US may meet Iranian officials.
Iran’s leaders, whose regional clout has been much reduced, are facing fierce demonstrations that evolved from complaints about dire economic hardships to defiant calls for the fall of the deeply entrenched clerical establishment.
Hundreds killed, over 10,000 arrested
Iranians have been mounting increasing challenges as their theocratic rulers get older. Violent protests are reported to have erupted in 2009, 2019, 2021 and 2022. But now “the protests have since spiralled into a wholesale revolt” in the capital, at universities and multiple impoverished towns, with government forces “killing the protesters in droves,” the New York Times said in its Morning report today.
Videos transmitted despite the internet blackout and verified by the paper “show corpses lined up in body bags outside hospitals.”
Tehran has said it would consider US military facilities and Israel “legitimate targets” if it detects signs of an impending attack, Iran’s parliamentary speaker warned, according to a report by US news-site Politico on Sunday.
Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said US military centres, bases and ships would be considered “legitimate targets” in the event of an attack on Iran, according to other media reports. “We do not consider ourselves limited to reacting after the action. We will act based on any objective signs of a threat.”
US-based rights group HRANA said by late Monday it had verified the deaths of 646 people, including 505 protesters, 113 military and security personnel and seven bystanders, and was investigating 579 more reported deaths.
Since the protests began on December 28, more than 10,700 people have been arrested, the group said.
HRANA said it received reports and videos on Monday from Tehran’s Behesht Zahra Cemetery where family members of victims “gathered at burial sites and chanted protest slogans.”
US citizens urged to leave
While airstrikes were one of many alternatives open to Trump, “diplomacy is always the first option for the president,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday.
“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,” she said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran was studying ideas proposed by Washington, but these were “incompatible” with US threats. “Communications between (US special envoy Steve) Witkoff and me continued before and after the protests and are still ongoing,” he told Al Jazeera.
The US Department of State Consular Affairs highlighted the escalating protests and said US citizens in Iran should consider leaving by land to Armenia or Turkey. “US nationals are at significant risk of questioning, arrest, and detention in Iran,” the department said on its TravelGov account on X.
Iran, which has not given an official death toll from the protests, blames the bloodshed on US interference and what it calls Israeli- and US-backed terrorists. State-run media has focused attention on the deaths of security forces.
The flow of information from the Islamic Republic has been hampered by an internet blackout since Thursday, although some Iranians still have access to the internet via Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service, three people inside the country told Reuters.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence said on Monday it had detained “terrorist” teams responsible for acts including killing paramilitary volunteers loyal to the clerical establishment, torching mosques and attacking military sites, according to a statement carried by state media.
Addressing a large crowd in Tehran’s Enqelab Square on Monday, parliamentary speaker Qalibaf said Iranians were fighting a war on four fronts – “economic war, psychological warfare, military war against the US and Israel, and today a war against terrorism.”
Declaring the situation “under total control”, Araqchi said on Monday that 53 mosques and 180 ambulances had been set on fire since the protests erupted.
Despite the massive scale of the protests, there are no signs of splits in the Shi’ite clerical leadership, military or security forces, and demonstrators have no clear central leadership. The opposition is fragmented.
Trump said on Sunday that Iran had called to negotiate about its disputed nuclear programme. “A meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what is happening before the meeting,” he told reporters on Air Force One.
Trump was due to meet with senior advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for Iran, a US official told Reuters. The Wall Street Journal reported that those included military strikes, using secret cyber weapons, widening sanctions and providing online help to anti-government sources.
Striking military installations could be highly risky, as some may be located in heavily populated areas.
NOTE: Further details were added to this report on Jan 13, 2026.
ALSO SEE:
Unrest Widens in Iran: Internet Shut Amid Riots, Fires in Cities
‘Indonesian Oil’ Surging Into China May Come From Iran: Traders
India Wins Sanctions Waiver For Iran Port, US Keen For Deal
US Sanctions Force Indian, Chinese Refiners to Cut Russian Oil
Oil and Gas Firms, Governments Silent on Methane Leaks, UN Says
Oil Seen Topping $100 a Barrel if Iran Closes Strait of Hormuz
Chinese, UAE Firms Hit With US Sanctions Over Iran Oil Trading
