President Donald Trump paused consideration of a U.S. military strike against Iran on Monday as his administration said it was “exploring” private messages from Tehran seeking dialogue, while Trump announced 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Iran — his first concrete penalty for the Iranian government’s violent crackdown on protests that has left more than 600 dead and thousands arrested.
The dual-track approach — diplomatic outreach alongside economic pressure — came as senior administration officials began assembling a formal menu of options, from diplomacy to military strikes, to present to Trump in the coming days.
Private messages, public threats
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday that Iran’s private communications differed markedly from its public posture. “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.”
Leavitt confirmed that Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, will be a key figure engaging Tehran. The White House offered no additional details about the content of Iran’s outreach.
Trump told reporters Sunday evening that a “meeting is being set up” with Iranian officials but cautioned that “we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting.” “We’re watching the situation very carefully,” Trump said.
Tariffs, options, and deliberations
Hours after Leavitt’s remarks, Trump announced the 25% tariffs on social media, saying they would take effect immediately. China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Brazil, and Russia are among economies that conduct business with Tehran. The White House declined to offer further details about the announcement.
Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and key National Security Council officials began meeting Friday to develop a “suite of options,” ranging from a diplomatic approach to military strikes, to present to Trump, according to a U.S. official familiar with the internal deliberations. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Protests, crackdown, and sustainability questions
The demonstrations — which the Associated Press reported are the largest Iran has seen in years — were initially spurred by the collapse of the Iranian currency and have since grown into a broader test of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule. Iran’s parliamentary speaker has warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if Washington uses force to protect demonstrators.
Vali Nasr, a former State Department adviser during the early Obama administration and now professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, said an internet blackout imposed by Tehran is limiting protesters’ ability to coordinate across cities. “It makes it very difficult for news from one city or pictures from one city to incense or motivate action in another city,” Nasr said. “The protests are leaderless, they’re organization-less. They are actually genuine eruptions of popular anger. And without leadership and direction and organization, such protests, not just in Iran, everywhere in the world — it’s very difficult for them to sustain themselves.”
Iranian authorities have previously suppressed large-scale protest movements, including the “Green Movement” that followed a disputed presidential election in 2009 and the “woman, life, freedom” demonstrations that erupted in 2022 after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the state’s morality police.
Hawkish allies press for action
Some of Trump’s allies urged him not to hold back. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Monday that the moment offers Trump a chance to demonstrate he will enforce the red lines he has set. “It is not enough to say we stand with the people of Iran,” Graham said. “The only right answer here is that we act decisively to protect protesters in the street — and that we’re not Obama — proving to them we will not tolerate their slaughter without action.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in a post on X, said “the goal of every Western leader should be to destroy the Iranian dictatorship at this moment of its vulnerability.” “In a few weeks either the dictatorship will be gone or the Iranian people will have been defeated and suppressed and a campaign to find the ringleaders and kill them will have begun,” Gingrich said. “There is no middle ground.”
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that favors a hawkish approach toward Tehran, said there is “a fast-diminishing value to official statements by the president promising to hold the regime accountable, but then staying on the sidelines.”
A crowded foreign policy agenda
Trump is managing several simultaneous foreign policy challenges alongside the Iran situation. It has been just over a week since the U.S. military carried out a raid to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and the U.S. continues to maintain a large number of troops in the Caribbean Sea, according to the Associated Press. Trump is also seeking to advance a second phase of a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and to broker an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine.