The US has long used sanctions to cripple Iran, including blocking access to foreign exchange reserves, which are important to the normal operation of the economy.
Forex reserves are particularly essential for managing exchange rates that take clues from the supply of foreign currency available in the market.
When problems arise with the way these reserves are accessed, the Iranian rial loses its value, but Iranian companies need to sell the rial, buy euro, yen or other currencies to buy goods and services from foreign suppliers, but at a higher cost.
The dollar has been ramping up against RIAL since trading roughly 690,000 rials at the time of President Donald Trump’s reelection in November. Recently, the Rial has dropped to a new history low of 930,000 for each dollar after signing an order reimposes a “maximum pressure” policy on Iran with more severe sanctions.
“With Trump’s signature, our country’s oil tankers and gas vessels are drifting away. Iraq, Turkiye and other countries have not repaid their debts to Iran,” President Masuud Pezeshkian said on Sunday.
He spoke to Congress before voting to reject Finance Minister Abdulnassar Hemati about the crashed RIAL. The firing came after some lawmakers argued that the rise in inflation and exchange rates was not the fault of the current government or Congress.
Before the blast, Pezeschkians won the podium, declaring that the government was trapped in a tough battle with the West, and faced challenges in pursuit of greater unity and cooperation from the Congress.
This development is another chapter in Iran’s struggle to navigate challenges caused by foreign pressure, and the obvious rights of any sovereign state, down to the usual functioning of its economy.
From billions of dollars of oil and gas revenues held in China, Turkey, India and Iraq to money frozen in Japan, Qatar, Luxembourg, Canada, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, the Islamic Republic has blocked oil and gas sales under sacred births, while others are under strict investigation and restrictions, thus blocking oil and gas sales.
There are no accurate, official statistics on total totals. Previous estimates suggest that Iran has more than $100 billion in foreign foreign reserves. Media reports have made them $40-5 billion.
When Qatar Emil Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani called on Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei in Tehran last month, the leader of the Islamic Revolution called on the U.S. Gulf Emirates to free the United States of America’s oil revenues of $6 billion in Iranian oil revenues held in Doha.
The oil gold frozen in South Korea’s bank account in 2019 was transferred to Katari in September 2023, and used by Iran for humanitarian purposes, but the US ordered the United Arab Emirates to block it a week after Hamas began its October 7 operation within the occupied territory of southern Israel.
“If we were in a Qatar location, we would not pay attention to the pressure raised by the US and return Iranian assets,” Ayatollah Khamenei told Tehran’s Sheikh Tamim. “We continue to hope that Qatar will do this.”
Last December, former housing minister Abbas Ahndi said China has $21 billion in Iranian oil funds in its escrow account and proposed to revitalize it as a credit facility for development projects in the Islamic Republic.
In 2023, the US issued sanctions exemptions, allowing Iraq to pay more than $2.7 billion out of Tehran’s $11 billion to import electricity and natural gas. However, the money had to be transferred to the Bank of Oman for Iran’s purchase of food, medicine and other goods under US supervision.
And the historic $530 debt that the UK paid to Iran in 2022 after the UK was blocked in Oman forty years, according to reports at the time. The UK was hardly delivered due to the 1,750 Chief Tanks and other vehicles purchased prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Meanwhile, the $1.7 billion Iranian assets held by Clearstream Unit in Luxembourg’s Germany, Beause, face a lawsuit filed in the US trying to seize them.
MNA/Press TV