Trump may have levied 25% tariffs on 'any country doing business with Iran'

US President Donald Trump has apparently again taken to social media to broadcast what may become an economic policy position in the US. 

Posting on the social media platform, Truth Social, which he owns, the verified @realDonaldTrump account claimed an immediate 25% tariff on trade with the US for any country also doing business with Iran. 

"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," the US President’s post said.

The White House’s verified account on X (formerly Twitter) reposted the message, but no details about the stated policy’s implementation have emerged on social media, the White House website or on the website of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). The USTR is the American federal government’s foreign trade agency, sitting under the President’s purview, that has published formal notices of action to implement US trade policy including President Trump’s port fee structure and tariffs. 

Much of the focus during the prolonged implementation of the port fees rested on US trade with China. And while President Trump’s tariffs have been used against many of the US’ international trading partners and announced at-will by the US President, Iran, a major oil producing nation under severe international sanctions, does most of its crude oil trading with China.

In response to the threat of 25% tariffs by President Trump, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington posted to X that "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."

The pressure on Iran from the White House comes at a time when Iran’s government, an Islamic theocracy headed up by the second so-called ’supreme leader’ Ali Hosseini Khamenei, is also facing what are reported to be widespread protests. President Trump has threatened military action in addition to purportedly imposing tariffs aimed at Iran, and the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing that airstrikes were among an array of options under consideration but that "diplomacy is always the first option for the president".

In an earlier story by Riviera’s Georgios Georgiou, shipping analysts downplayed attacks on oil facilities in Iran by the US and made a prescient forecast of secondary sanctions on Chinese purchases of Iran’s oil.

Anti-government protests have broken out across all 31 provinces, according to international media reports, amid mounting US pressure and close monitoring from China, which currently takes in nearly all of Iran’s crude exports.

“The Iranian regime is arguably facing its most precarious moment in decades,” said Kpler head of crude oil analysis Homayoun Falakshahi in a special report.

“Internally, the economy is deeply weakened, inflation is rampant, and oil revenues are constrained by sanctions, low oil prices, and high discounts. Externally, Iran’s proxies are faltering, regional influence is waning, and President Trump has issued unusually direct warnings,” he said.

BRS Shipbrokers head of research, Andrew Wilson, told Riviera that historically, the US has avoided striking Iranian oil infrastructure, opting instead for military or nuclear targets.

“Any attack on oil installations would likely propel oil prices higher, something unpalatable for Washington,” he said. “In my view, Washington could instead look to impose secondary sanctions on Chinese buyers of Iranian oil to increase pressure on Tehran.”