Tehran (GNP): Iranian leaders are openly acknowledging the economic toll of the country’s six-month war with the United States, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei calling on the government to address mounting hardship while President Masoud Pezeshkian reports that foreign trade has shrunk nearly 35 percent due to American sanctions and a naval blockade.
The warnings come even as other Iranian officials threaten military retaliation against the US and insist the Iranian navy maintains control of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway that gives Tehran significant leverage over global energy markets.
With negotiations at an impasse and the conflict now six months old, the Trump administration has intensified financial pressure on Iran through what it has billed internally as an economic push of major scale.
Washington has warned countries to cut business ties with Tehran or face secondary sanctions, though the Treasury Department has stopped short of penalising major Iranian trade partners such as China and India, given the potential repercussions for the US and global economies.
The Treasury did, however, sanction Egypt’s Banque Misr over its dealings with Tehran, proposing a rule that would cut the bank’s branches in the United Arab Emirates off from dollar transactions. Egypt’s central bank says it and the country’s foreign ministry are in contact with US officials on the matter, adding that the measure is limited to Banque Misr’s UAE unit and its dollar transactions with correspondent banks.
Separately, US Treasury officials have sanctioned one entity based in Hong Kong and one individual linked to Iran’s Bank Melli.
This sanctions campaign is compounding pressure on an economy already under severe strain, with annual inflation reaching 66 percent last month. In a written statement, Khamenei, who was injured and has not appeared publicly since the February attack that killed his father and predecessor, former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, says there is a serious need to address the chain of economic and livelihood challenges facing the country, including inflation, unemployment and the management of prices for goods and services.
Pezeshkian, speaking to state media, says Iranian exports and imports have slumped by nearly 35 percent due to the sanctions and blockade, though he notes Iran managed to sell around 90 million barrels of oil during a short-lived memorandum of understanding signed with the US in June, when Washington briefly permitted Iranian oil sales.
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Even as Washington keeps its focus on economic pressure, other regional actors are working to revive diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met with Iranian leaders in Tehran, saying he stressed the importance of restoring pre-war conditions for open shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi describes the talks with Al Thani as creative. Qatar, alongside Pakistan, had earlier helped broker the June memorandum of understanding that produced a brief ceasefire before disagreements over the strait caused it to collapse.
Control of the strait remains contested on the ground. US military commanders say American forces have cleared sea mines laid months earlier by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Trump has repeatedly said the waterway is open.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps’ navy disputes this, calling such claims an obvious lie and maintaining that the strait remains closed to vessels without Iranian permission. Preliminary shipping data underscores the disruption, showing only seven commodity vessels transited the strait on Thursday, down from 17 the day before and well below the ten-day average of 15.
