Iran says war and blockade have cut foreign trade by about 35 percent

President Masoud Pezeshkian told Iranian state media that exports and imports have fallen by about 35 percent under U.S. sanctions and a naval blockade of Iranian ports. In a separate interview carried by Tasnim he put the range at 25 to 35 percent and said imports had dropped more than exports.

The admission landed as the war with the United States reached six months. A written statement attributed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei called on the government to tackle inflation, unemployment and the market for goods and services. Khamenei has not been seen in public since 28 February, when a U.S. and Israeli attack killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and wounded him.

Annual inflation hit 66 percent last month. Pezeshkian said Iran still sold about 90 million barrels of oil during the short-lived June memorandum of understanding with Washington, when sales were briefly allowed. That window closed. President Donald Trump reimposed the blockade on 14 July after Iranian attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

Kpler's shipping data, cited by CNBC, show Iran loading about 260,000 barrels a day at its ports so far this month. That is more than 80 percent below the 1.7 million barrels a day recorded in August 2025 and about 70 percent below July's 893,000 barrels a day. U.S. Central Command said on Saturday that as of 28 August its forces had redirected 82 commercial vessels, disabled three and boarded two to enforce compliance.

Washington has described the latest financial campaign as an economic D-Day. The Treasury has warned third countries to cut business with Iran or face secondary sanctions. It has not, so far, moved against China or India, Iran's largest remaining oil customers. It has moved against Egypt's Banque Misr in the United Arab Emirates and against a Hong Kong entity tied to Bank Melli. Almanaque reported the Banque Misr proposal on Saturday.

Pezeshkian also said the central bank had received $7.5 billion in oil proceeds over four months, enough, in his account, to cover foreign-currency spending into early January 2027. That figure is a government claim. It sits beside the 35 percent trade drop and the 66 percent inflation print. Together they describe an economy that can still move some oil through gaps in the blockade and cannot keep shelves or the rial stable.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met Iranian officials in Tehran on Thursday to push for a return to open shipping through Hormuz. Preliminary counts showed seven commodity vessels crossing the strait on Thursday, down from 17 on Wednesday and below a 10-day average of 15. Mohsen Rezaei and an IRGC spokesman have already published terms for any reopening. Those terms, reported separately, demand an end to the port blockade, compensation and the lifting of sanctions.

The political line from Tehran on Saturday was consistent across three voices. Pezeshkian named the trade collapse. Khamenei's office named inflation and jobs. Military officials repeated that the navy still controls Hormuz. The three statements can be true at once. Control of a strait does not refill a treasury if tankers will not sail and buyers will not clear dollars.

For households in Tehran the useful number is 66 percent, not 35 percent. A one-third drop in recorded trade is an aggregate. A two-thirds rise in prices is what wages meet at the market. The government now says both problems sit at the centre of policy. It has not said which subsidy, which exchange-rate band or which import list will change first.

The war's economic phase is clearer than its military one. The United States has shifted from strikes to shipping interdiction and secondary-sanctions threats. Iran has shifted from battlefield communiqués to an official confession that trade has shrunk by a third. Neither shift ends the blockade. Both make the next negotiation, if it comes, a talk about barrels and banks as much as about missiles.