{"id":262510,"date":"2026-08-24T12:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T12:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/262510\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T12:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T12:35:09","slug":"irans-rial-hits-record-low-as-us-prepares-to-announce-more-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/262510\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s rial hits record low as US prepares to announce more sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"

By NASSER KARIMI and DAVID RISING<\/p>\n

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) \u2014 Iran\u2019s currency hit a record low Monday as Washington prepared to announce new sanctions it said would add further pressure on an economy already battered<\/a> by previous sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade.<\/p>\n

The rial dropped to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar as trading opened on currency markets. Iran\u2019s official Central Bank rate stood at around 1.5 million rial to the dollar, but the market rate is what most Iranians pay.<\/p>\n

The currency had already been under pressure before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28<\/a>, as Iran faced double-digit inflation and negative growth, but has repeatedly hit new lows as nearly six months of war have taken an even greater toll.<\/p>\n

Iranians find daily staples increasingly unaffordable. Since the war began, rice is up some 60% and prices of beef are more than 150% higher. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that GDP will contract more than 5%.<\/p>\n

Still, economic pressure has not yet translated into political pressure. Iran retains a key strategic advantage<\/a>: Its attacks and threats on ships in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> have brought traffic in the vital waterway to a near halt, damaging the world economy and heaping pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of congressional elections.<\/p>\n

\"AA small boat sails past cargo ships and other commercial vessels anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi\/ISNA via AP)<\/p>\n

The war, as a result, has devolved into a fight over who controls the strait, through which a fifth of the world\u2019s traded oil transited before the conflict. Iran is now refusing to fully reopen it unless it can charge ships.<\/p>\n

Iran and Oman, which is on the opposite side of the strait, are reportedly in the final stages of agreeing upon a plan<\/a> for joint management of the waterway. Oman\u2019s foreign minister is set to visit Iran on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to break the impasse, Trump\u2019s administration promised even stronger sanctions<\/a> than those already in place would be announced Monday, including secondary sanctions on countries that continue to do business with Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump decimated Iran\u2019s economy to a point where the rial has never been weaker and inflation has rarely been higher,\u201d U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote Sunday in an opinion piece in the Financial Times. \u201cThe regime\u2019s final refuge now lies in the self-deception of fearful nations that still believe accommodating aggression can secure a durable peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already last week, the United Arab Emirates announced that it was suspending all trade<\/a> with Iran. The UAE has long been one of Iran\u2019s largest trading partners and its biggest source of imports.<\/p>\n

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran on Monday that \u201cany escalation of this situation will undoubtedly bring about consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hands are not tied,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Pakistan, which played a key role in brokering a 60-day ceasefire in June, sent a high-level delegation to Iran on Monday to discuss ending the war, the military said.<\/p>\n

In downtown Tehran, 73-year-old Sadegh Mahmoudi did not hold out hope for a resolution. He joined a line of about a dozen people to purchase U.S. dollars with his remaining savings to hedge against further declines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no hope for a deal and peace,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rising reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By NASSER KARIMI and DAVID RISING TEHRAN, Iran (AP) \u2014 Iran\u2019s currency hit a record low Monday as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[34,72318,196,101,225,23561],"class_list":["post-262510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-iran","tag-iran-rial","tag-iran-war","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-us-iran","tag-us-sanctions-iran"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117150516993621719","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}