\n<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON — <\/span>WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> said on Tuesday that he\u2019s cutting off the prospect of talks with Iranian officials amid a protest crackdown, telling Iranian citizens \u201chelp is on its way.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump did not offer any details about what the help would entail, but it comes after the Republican president just days ago said Iran wants to negotiate<\/a> with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic, where the death toll from nationwide protests has spiked to more than 2,000, according to human rights monitors.<\/p>\n But Trump, with his latest message on social media, appeared to make an abrupt shift about his willingness to engage with the Iranian government.<\/p>\n “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!\u201d Trump wrote in a morning post on Truth Social. \u201cSave the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. president has repeatedly threatened Tehran with military action<\/a> if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against antigovernment protesters. Trump on Sunday told reporters he believed Iran is \u201cstarting to cross\u201d that line and has left him and his national security team weighing \u201cvery strong options\u201d even as he said the Iranians had made outreach efforts to the U.S.<\/p>\n And on Monday, the president\u2019s team offered guarded hope that a diplomatic solution could be found.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat you\u2019re 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,\u201d White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday<\/a>. \u201cHowever, with that said, the president has shown he\u2019s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n Also on Monday, Trump said he would slap 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Tehran \u201ceffective immediately,\u201d but the White House has not provided details on that move. China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Brazil and Russia are among economies that do business with Tehran.<\/p>\n Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and key White House National Security Council officials began meeting Friday to develop options for Trump, ranging from a diplomatic approach to military strikes.<\/p>\n Iran, through the country\u2019s parliamentary speaker, has warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be \u201clegitimate targets\u201d if Washington uses force to protect demonstrators.<\/p>\n More than 600 protests<\/a> have taken place across all of Iran\u2019s 31 provinces, the Human Rights Activists News Agency reported Tuesday. The activist group said 1,850 of the dead were protesters and 135 were government-affiliated. It said more than 16,700 people had been detained.<\/p>\n Understanding the scale of the protests has been difficult. Iranian state media has provided little information about the demonstrations. Online videos offer only brief, shaky glimpses of people in the streets or the sound of gunfire.<\/p>\n Trump’s push on the Iranian government to end the crackdown comes as he is dealing with a series of other foreign policy emergencies around the globe.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been just over a week since the U.S. military launched a successful raid to arrest Venezuela\u2019s Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> and remove him from power. The U.S. continues to mass an unusually large number of troops<\/a> in the Caribbean Sea.<\/p>\n Trump is also focused on trying to get Israel and Hamas onto the second phase of a peace deal in Gaza and broker an agreement between Russia and Ukraine<\/a> to end the nearly four-year war in Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n But advocates urging Trump to take strong action against Iran say this moment offers an opportunity to further diminish the theocratic government that\u2019s ruled the country since the Islamic revolution in 1979<\/a>.<\/p>\n The demonstrations are the biggest Iran has seen in years \u2014 protests spurred by the collapse of Iranian currency that have morphed into a larger test of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei\u2019s<\/a> repressive rule.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n