US to impose 25% tariff on countries doing business with Iran, Trump says
The move comes as the White House weighs a response to protests in Iran that have rocked its government.
The U.S. will put a 25% tariff on any country that does business with Iran, President Trump said on Monday, raising pressure on the Middle Eastern nation after days of protests against the government.
“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," Trump posted on Truth Social.
The president called the order “final and conclusive" but didn’t detail which legal authority would underpin the tariffs, and no executive actions on the matter were immediately posted on the White House website.
Trump and his team have weighed how to respond to popular protests against the Iranian government, and the president was slated to meet with senior officials Tuesday on the subject. The White House declined to provide more detail beyond the Truth Social post.
It remains unclear whether the 25% tariff would be added to existing duties paid by Iran’s economic partners. Iran’s top trading partner is China, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an open source data distribution platform that started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Other partners include Turkey, India, Pakistan and Armenia. Russia and Iran also inked a free-trade agreement in 2025, boosting the amount of business the countries do with each other, according to Russia’s state news agency TASS.
Increasing tariffs on China could derail a fragile trade truce that Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived at after a meeting in South Korea last October, threatening a planned meeting between Trump and Xi this spring. Hiking levies could also threaten a recent trade and oil development pact Trump struck with Pakistan last year, and derail ongoing talks with India, which is already paying 50% tariffs in part for purchasing sanctioned Russian oil.
The tariff move also comes as the Supreme Court weighs whether Trump has overstepped his legal authority in issuing tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law that had never before been used to levy tariffs.
While the White House didn’t specify which legal authority Trump would use for the Iran tariffs, similar tariff threats in the past have relied on the at-risk Ieepa authority. The Supreme Court could issue its ruling on the case as soon as Wednesday, when it is next expected to hand down opinions.
Write to Gavin Bade at gavin.bade@wsj.com and Lynn Cook at lynn.cook@wsj.com
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