The US State Department has announced that it aims to cut off all Iranian regime’s oil exports by November, as part of its plan to undermine the Iranian economy and collapse the Iranian Regime, with the idea being that Iran will export less oil and receive a lower price for the oil that they do export.
The US had already announced measures to penalise countries and businesses that continued to trade with Iran, in every sector of the Iranian economy aside from food and medicine, but now the US will go further.
The US has threatened deep sanctions against key ally South Korea, unless it cuts off its Iranian oil imports, which is estimated to be 14% of Iran’s total oil exports. However, the US will also need to tackle the other big importers, including China (24%), India (18%), Turkey (9%), and Italy (7%).
Saudi Arabia has indicated that it will increase its oil production to about 1 million barrels of oil per day, in line with the OPEC agreement, to meet increased demand, but not all countries have indicated that they will abide by US demands.
China and Europe are still a part of the 2015 nuclear deal that Donald Trump pulled out of in May, while Turkey has said that it will not abide by the sanctions.
Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal, citing Iran’s cheating, on May 8, and started the ball rolling on reimposing sanctions on Iran. Other sanctions, specifically against the motoring industry, go into place in August.
This is part of Trump’s plan to get tough on the Regime.
Iran economy
The Iranian economy is already in dire straits, due to the mullahs’ corruption and mismanagement, with inflation currently at 10%, unemployment at 12% (rising to 33% for the under-30s), and a currency that is falling by the hour against the US dollar.
The Iranian people, who have been protesting since the start of 2018, blame the Regime’s malign foreign policies (i.e. supporting terrorists and the Assad dictatorship in Syria) for the economic problems. The people support the US’s plan, as they wish to see regime change in their country.
This was made especially clear at this weekend’s Free Iran Gathering in Paris, where over 100,000 politicians, activists, and members of the Iranian diaspora turned up to show their desire for removing the mullahs from power and instituting a democratically elected government, in the form of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – a coalition of Iranian dissident groups that forms a government-in-exile in France.
Source » ncr-iran