Trump tells Iranians to keep protesting because help is on its way: military action ahead?
2026-01-13 15:17:00
Trump said on Truth Social that all the meetings with Iran’s officials have been cancelled and exhorted the Iranian people to keep protesting because help was on its way.
For some context, the protests in Iran represent one of the most significant challenges to the Islamic Republic’s authority in decades. The unrest was ignited by a catastrophic currency collapse, with the rial plummeting to over 1.4 million per USD, and a sharp hike in fuel prices. However, the protests quickly evolved into a broad rejection of the leadership.
Just yesterday we got reports from Axios that Trump was floating the idea of outright strikes to weaken the Iranian regime, although it was also followed by less aggressive plans. Trump has also threatened to impose 25% tariff on any country doing business with Iran.
It looks like the US President wants to fully take advantage of the protests to either overthrow the current regime or force them to sign deals on US terms.
Trump’s post triggered some risk aversion in the market with US stocks falling to session lows, crude oil extending gains and US dollar erasing earlier losses.
crude oil continues to rise amid US-Iran tensions
On the daily chart above, we can see that the focus switched pretty quickly from Venezuela to Iran. Crude oil futures weakened following the capture of Maduro but then started to edge higher as the protests in Iran intensified and the US promised support to Iranian people.
The price broke out of a major falling channel and rose above the key 60.50 swing level. There’s no strong resistance until the 66.00 handle now. All eyes are on the US and Iran now as a military action would trigger a strong rally in oil prices and potentially a broad wave of risk aversion.
