Trump urges Iranians to keep protesting, help is on its way

US President Donald Trump urged Iranians on Tuesday to keep protesting and said help was on the way, without giving details, as Iran's clerical establishment pressed its crackdown against the biggest demonstrations in years.

"Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!... HELP IS ON ITS WAY," Trump said in a post on Truth Social, adding he had canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the "senseless killing" of protesters stopped.

The unrest, sparked by dire economic conditions, has posed the biggest internal challenge to Iran's rulers for at least three years and has come at a time of intensifying international pressure after Israeli and US strikes last year.

An Iranian official said earlier on Tuesday that about 2,000 people had been killed in the protests, the first-time authorities have acknowledged the high death toll from more than two weeks of nationwide unrest.

The official, speaking to Reuters, said that people he called terrorists were behind the deaths of both protesters and security personnel. The official, who declined to be named, did not give a breakdown of who had been killed.

On Monday evening, Trump announced 25% import tariffs on products from any country doing business with Iran - a major oil exporter. Trump has also said more military action is among options he is weighing to punish Iran over the crackdown.

Tehran has not yet responded publicly to Trump's announcement of the tariffs, but it was swiftly criticized by China. Iran, already under heavy US sanctions, exports much of its oil to China, with Turkey, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and India among its other top trading partners.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Al Jazeera on Monday that he had continued to communicate with US special envoy Steve Witkoff during the protests and that Tehran was studying ideas proposed by Washington.

Iranian authorities have accused the US and Israel of fomenting the unrest.

Russia condemned what it described as "subversive external interference" in Iran's internal politics, saying that US.threats of new military strikes against the country were "categorically unacceptable."

"Those who plan to use externally inspired unrest as a pretext for repeating the aggression against Iran committed in June 2025 must be aware of the disastrous consequences of such actions for the situation in the Middle East and global international security," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Despite the protests, which come at a particularly vulnerable moment for authorities given the scale of economic problems, and years of external pressure, there are as yet no signs of fracture in the security elite that could bring an end to the clerical system in power since a 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Britain, France, Germany and Italy all summoned Iranian ambassadors in protest over the crackdown.

"The brutal actions of the Iranian regime against its own people are shocking," the German Foreign Ministry said on social media platform X.

Item 1 of 4 Iranian demonstrators gather in a street during a protest over the collapse of the currency's value, in Tehran, Iran, January 8, 2026. Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Underscoring international uncertainty over what comes next in Iran, which has been one of the dominant powers across the Middle East for decades, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he believed the government would fall.

"I assume that we are now witnessing the final days and weeks of this regime," he said, adding that if it had to maintain power through violence, "it is effectively at its end".

Araqchi dismissed Merz's criticisms, accusing Berlin of double standards and saying he had "obliterated any shred of credibility".

The protests began on December 28, 2025 over the fall in value of the currency and have grown into wider demonstrations and calls for the fall of the clerical establishment.

Hengaw, an Iranian Kurdish rights group, has reported that a 26-year-old man, Erfan Soltani, arrested in connection with protests in the city of Karaj, will be executed on Wednesday. Authorities had told the family that the death sentence was final, Hengaw reported, citing a source close to the family.

"The rushed and non-transparent handling of this case has heightened concerns over the use of the death penalty as a tool to suppress public protests," Hengaw said on Monday.

Parliament member Mohammadreza Sabaghian, who represents an area in Yazd, in central Iran, said the government needed to resolve people's dissatisfaction, otherwise "the same events will occur with greater intensity".