Add The New York Post on Google Iran is facing a potential economic disaster as the besieged Islamic Republic’s fuel reserves have dwindled to a paltry two-month supply, following months of punishing US bombing campaigns and a fresh wave of crippling economic sanctions.
The US unleashed a barrage of secondary sanctions in recent weeks to choke off Iran’s supply of cash, restricting the rogue nation’s access to international financing networks and even blockading its oil exports.
This is preventing Iran from doing everything from buying goods to securing foreign currency, and even forcing it to import gasoline because its refinery infrastructure has been decimated and there’s no money to fix it, three senior Iranian sources told Reuters.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last month unveiled “Operation Economic Outcast” — a plan to to “collapse the regime” by implementing the “toughest sanctions in US history,” which he likened to an “economic D-Day” in Iran.
President Trump further warned any nation providing “any type of lifeline” to Iran would face their own economic consequences.
Iran’s clerical rulers have evaded sanctions for decades, but the latest effort by the US to bring the six-month conflict to an end through economic means has even left the regime too cash-strapped to pay the premium cost of evading sanctions illicitly, the sources told the outlet.
This has rendered its front companies, unregistered tankers and smuggling operations all but useless, the senior officials said.
Perhaps most calamitous of all, the country has just two months’ worth of gasoline left, one senior official said.
Another crushing loss the regime is coping with is the loss of one of its primary trading partners, the United Arab Emirates, which, following US pressure and attacks from Iran, announced Aug. 19 it would cease all financial dealings with Iran until further notice.
“They are under very, very severe economic pressure. They’re losing control of the Straits. It’s really a question of if they choose to negotiate and I think they’ll have to,” said Ali Ansari, modern history professor at St. Andrews University in Scotland, told the outlet.
Although the global flow of oil has largely resumed unencumbered through the Strait of Hormuz — despite the regime’s attempts to the contrary — Iran’s exports have been curtailed by the US blockade, cutting off Tehran’s primary revenue source.
The war-torn country’s economy was already in freefall even before the war began.
Iran’s currency, the rial, has cratered in value over the last year from around 1 million rials to the dollar to over 2.2 million.
Inflation has surged to a 12-month average of 69.9%, according to official figures, with the prices of staples like tobacco, food and beverages increasing nearly twice as much.
Unemployment jumped to 9.1%, but even those lucky enough to have jobs are far from making ends meet — the average monthly salary of $125 in Iran is less than one-third of the cost of basic household spending, the outlet writes.
“We are getting poorer every day,” said Mahnaz, a 34-year-old private-sector employee in Tehran who asked Reuters not to use her family name.
And the economic pain could be about to get even worse.
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President JD Vance told reporters Thursday that China, another of the regime’s key trading partners, was “willing to play ball” with US efforts to sever Iran’s global economic ties to bring about a peace deal.
“I’m not saying they’re doing everything that we’ve asked them to do, but I think that the PRC has been much more responsible, certainly than the Iranians, and much more responsible than a couple of other nations as well.”
China’s ability to help magnify Iran’s economic isolation is expected to be a main topic of conversation when President Xi Jinping visits the White House toward the end of the month.
