-Source-Express-
With prices spiralling and President Hassan Rouhani at loggerheads with US opposite number Donald Trump, things got even worse this week with the reimposition of tough economic sanctions aimed at further undermining the Islamic fundamentalist republic.
Measures which target cars, gold and other metals trading, as well as the government’s ability to buy US dollars, came into force today.
The US has acted after Mr Trump pulled out of the JPCA nuclear agreement earlier this year, the deal which eased sanctions against Iran in exchange for no longer embarking on nuclear weapons development.
The Iranian rial has lost half of its value against the US dollar on the unofficial market this year, while the price of fruit and vegetables has increased by 50 percent since the start of the year.
Iranian woman
In the current economic climate, low-income families are struggling to put food on the table. One woman, speaking to the Financial Times as she paid over the odds for a lettuce and a cabbage, said: “God damn this regime and its corrupt rulers.
“They have sent their children to the US and Canada while making us poorer every day.”
Recent months have been marked with protests across Iran on issues ranging from water shortages to joblessness, and the Trump administration is partly motivated by a desire to trigger a popular uprising and consequent regime change – something implied by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a speech delivered last month in which he characterised the country’s rulers as a “mafia”. Read more