{"id":4542,"date":"2026-01-05T16:36:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T16:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/president-trump-doubles-down-on-military-action-against-iran-while-warning-of-further-interventions-in-venezuela-mexico-and-cuba\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T05:24:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T05:24:37","slug":"president-trump-doubles-down-on-military-action-against-iran-while-warning-of-further-interventions-in-venezuela-mexico-and-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/president-trump-doubles-down-on-military-action-against-iran-while-warning-of-further-interventions-in-venezuela-mexico-and-cuba\/","title":{"rendered":"President Trump doubles down on military action against Iran while warning of further interventions in Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/figure>\n

By Sean Rayment <\/em><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump renewed his threat of US intervention in Iran as protests over the country\u2019s failing economy have continued.<\/p>\n

Videos published online showed demonstrations in Tehran, as well as in Fars, Ilam, North Khorasan and Semnan provinces.<\/p>\n

Human rights activists said protests had taken place in 26 of the country\u2019s 31 provinces since last week, and that at least 19 protesters and one member of the security forces had been killed.<\/p>\n

Trump has again warned that Iranian authorities would be \u201chit very hard\u201d if more protesters died.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they\u2019re going to get hit very hard by the United States,\u201d he told reporters on Air Force One.<\/p>\n

The speaker of Iran\u2019s parliament said the protesters\u2019 \u201clegitimate demands\u201d should be heard and used as the basis for change.<\/p>\n

But Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf added that any foreign agents and opponents of the establishment attempting to exploit the protests would be \u201cconfronted effectively\u201d.<\/p>\n

His comments echoed those of Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has declared that \u201crioters should be put in their place\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Iranian foreign ministry\u2019s spokesman also accused Israel of seeking to \u201cundermine our national unity\u201d, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his government\u2019s \u201csolidarity with the struggle of the Iranian people\u201d on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Esmail Baqai told a news conference that the statements by Netanyahu and \u201ccertain radical American officials\u201d were \u201cnothing more than incitement to violence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Iran and Israel fought a 12-day war last June, during which Israeli and US jets bombed key Iranian nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n

The latest protests in Iran began when shopkeepers took to the streets of Tehran on 28 December to express their anger at another sharp fall in the value of the Iranian currency against the US dollar. The rial has sunk to a record low and inflation has risen to 40% as sanctions over Iran\u2019s nuclear programme squeeze the economy.<\/p>\n

University students soon joined the protests and they began spreading to other cities.<\/p>\n

On Monday, footage posted on social media appeared to show a protest in the city of Yasuj, south-western Iran, according to BBC Persian. A crowd of men and women could be heard chanting \u201cFreedom, freedom, freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n

Videos obtained by BBC Persian on Sunday night appeared to show several dozen protesters marching down a street in the city of Sari, north of Tehran.<\/p>\n

They can be heard chanting slogans including \u201cDeath to the dictator\u201d \u2013 a reference to Khamenei, who has ultimate power in the country \u2013 and \u201cPahlavi is coming back\u201d \u2013 a reference to Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late shah.<\/p>\n

In another clip, a number of people are seen fleeing amid the sound of gunfire.<\/p>\n

BBC Persian said there were also protests in the districts of Ilam, Arak, Hamedan, Amol, Lahijan, Kermanshah, Malekshahi, Semnan and Noorabad on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

Another video purportedly showed security forces storming a hospital in the western city of Ilam, where a human rights activist said wounded protesters were sheltering.<\/p>\n

The protests have been the most widespread since an uprising in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her veil properly. Hundreds of people were killed and thousands detained in a violent crackdown by security forces.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Nicolas Maduro, the former president of Venezuela who was arrested and removed from the country last week, is due to appear in a US court in New York where he will face narco-terrorism charges.<\/p>\n

The South American country is now being run by Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, the vice-president under Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, who is due to be sworn in as president.<\/p>\n

Delcy, formerly a staunch critic of the US, said in a lengthy Telegram post: \u201cWe consider it a priority to move toward a balanced and respectful international relationship between the United States and Venezuela \u2026 based on sovereign equality and non-interference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe extend an invitation to the US government to work together on a cooperation agenda,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Addressing President Trump directly, Rodr\u00edguez said: \u201cOur people and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war. That has always been the position of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier, Trump told\u00a0The Atlantic Magazine<\/em>\u00a0that if Rodr\u00edguez \u201cdoesn\u2019t do what\u2019s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro\u201d.<\/p>\n

President Trump has also threatened military action against his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro.<\/p>\n

He spoke out on Sunday during a trip aboard Air Force One, claiming that Venezuela and Colombia were \u201cvery sick\u201d and that the government in Bogota was run by \u201ca sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he\u2019s not going to be doing it very long. Let me tell you,\u201d Trump said, referring to Petro.<\/p>\n

When asked if he meant a US operation against Colombia, Trump said, \u201cSounds good to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The remarks prompted a sharp rebuke from Petro, who told Trump to \u201cstop slandering\u201d him while also calling on Latin American countries to unite or risk being \u201ctreated as a servant and slave\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a series of lengthy posts on X, Petro noted that \u201cthe US is the first country in the world to bomb a South American capital in all of human history\u201d. But he said revenge was not the answer.<\/p>\n

Instead, Latin America must unite, Petro said, and become a region \u201cwith the capacity to understand, trade, and join together with the whole world\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not look only to the north, but in all directions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sean Rayment President Donald Trump renewed his threat of US intervention in Iran as protests over the country\u2019s failing economy have continued. Videos published online showed demonstrations in Tehran, as well as in Fars, Ilam, North Khorasan and Semnan provinces. Human rights activists said protests had taken place in 26 of the country\u2019s 31<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4546,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542\/revisions\/4546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}