Iranians face war fatigue as rial halves and strikes
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Trump claimed Thursday he called off fresh strikes on Iran and said a deal to end the war was imminent, even as strikes earlier in the week pushed a shaky ceasefire to the edge of collapse.
- Iran's rial has lost more than half its value in the past year, with exchange rates crashing to around 1.8 million rials to the dollar, compared with roughly 41,600 rials a decade earlier.
- Iranian industrialists led by trade-group member Mehdi Bostanchi warned that a U.S. naval blockade has throttled oil exports and imports of raw materials, leaving many businesses focused solely on survival rather than recovery.
- Strikes on Iran's steel, petrochemical, and energy infrastructure earlier in the war triggered a wave of business closures and job losses, compounding triple-digit food inflation that has made groceries unaffordable for many.
- Iranian security forces shot thousands of anti-government protesters in January, and arrests of demonstrators and their supporters have continued throughout the war, according to residents cited by the AP.
- Iran's hard-liner base has rallied around the country's ability to absorb U.S.-Israeli attacks and threaten the Strait of Hormuz, with authorities staging nightly rallies to project support for a tough negotiating stance.
- Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on state television that mediators remain active but nothing has been finalized to end the conflict, contradicting Trump's claim of an imminent deal.
Why it matters: Iranian businesses say they cannot plan for the future while a naval blockade and uncertainty over a ceasefire choke raw-material imports, and the rial's collapse to roughly 1.8 million per dollar means every week without a deal accelerates closures and job losses for ordinary Iranians already skipping groceries under triple-digit food inflation.
