OIL prices in Thailand are not rising in the short term despite US President Donald Trump having on Monday (Jan. 12) announced a 25 percent tariff on any country trading with Iran, amid Tehran’s violent crackdown on a wave of protests, PPTVHD36 said today.
Energy Minister Auttapol Rerkpiboon said while this development will affect global oil prices and lead to them increasing in the short term, they will not rise within Thailand.
When asked again whether oil prices in Thailand would go up, Auttapol confirmed that they probably would not in the short term but the situation has to be closely monitored.
Oil prices hit their highest level since November after Trump said he would impose 25 percent tariffs on goods with countries “doing business” with Iran, according to The Telegraph.
In a potential blow to motorists, Brent was up above $64 a barrel, last increasing 0.7 percent, after the US president said the new levies would be “effective immediately”, without providing further details.
“This Order is final and conclusive,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Charu Chanana, an analyst at Saxo Markets, said that initially the tariffs “may be a geopolitical premium on crude prices”.
Oil has climbed for three consecutive trading sessions amid the growing protests in Iran.
Investors had expected prices to fall this year as a result of a glut of supplies but so far the opposite has happened after the US military capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and the unrest in Iran.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York declined to comment on Trump’s tariff announcement. Iran, already under heavy US sanctions, exports much of its oil to China, with Türkiye, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and India among its other top trading partners, according to a report from agencies published by CNA.
Meanwhile, Iranian authorities sought to regain control of the streets with mass nationwide rallies.
The government’s call for rallies in support of the Islamic Republic drew thousands on Monday, a turnout Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed as proof that the protests – which the authorities attribute to foreign interference – had been defeated.
Iran’s leaders, their regional clout much reduced, are facing fierce demonstrations that evolved from complaints about dire economic hardships to defiant calls for the fall of the deeply entrenched clerical establishment.
Rights groups have warned that an internet blackout that monitor Netblocks says has lasted four days was aimed at masking a deadly crackdown on the protests.
The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it had confirmed 648 people were killed during the protests, including nine minors, and thousands more injured, but warned the death toll was likely much higher – “according to some estimates more than 6,000”, it said.
IHR added that the internet shutdown made it “extremely difficult to independently verify these reports”, saying an estimated 10,000 people had been arrested.
“The international community has a duty to protect civilian protesters against mass killing by the Islamic Republic,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene militarily if Tehran killed protesters, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying on Monday that military options, including air strikes, were still “on the table”, but “diplomacy is always the first option for the president”.
CAPTIONS:
Top and Front Page – Thai Energy Minister Auttapol Rerkpiboon. Photos – PPTVHD35
First insert – US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Jan. 11. Photo – Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP and published by CNA
Second insert – This frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. Photo – UGC via AP and published by CNA
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