Pezeshkian says Iran's trade has fallen as much as 35 percent after six months of war

President Masoud Pezeshkian told Iranian state television that the country's foreign trade has fallen by 25 to 35 percent under U.S. sanctions and a naval blockade. He said imports have dropped more than exports. The interview, carried by Tasnim, landed on Saturday as the war that began on 28 February reached six months.

Annual inflation hit 66 percent last month. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since the opening strike that killed his father, Ali Khamenei, issued a written statement telling the government to deal with inflation, unemployment and prices. He also called for a gradual cut in the role of the dollar and more weight on domestic production.

Oil that still moves, and oil that does not

Pezeshkian said Iran sold about 90 million barrels during the brief June memorandum with Washington that allowed some oil sales. That window closed. Kpler, the cargo-tracking firm, put Iranian loadings so far this month at about 260,000 barrels a day, against 1.7 million barrels a day in August 2025, a drop of more than 80 percent.

The Central Bank of Iran said it has transferred $7.5 billion in oil proceeds over four months, enough, it claimed, to cover foreign-currency spending into early January 2027. That figure is the government's own. It does not reverse the 35 percent trade slump Pezeshkian described, and it does not reopen Hormuz.

The strait remains the leverage Tehran keeps citing. Iranian officials say the navy still controls the waterway. The United States says economic pressure, billed in Washington as an "economic D-Day," is now the main tool after six months of fighting that did not produce a settlement. Mediators in Qatar and Pakistan have kept talking. The 60-day memorandum that was meant to frame negotiations has expired.

Who is being squeezed, and who is not

Treasury has warned third countries to cut business with Iran or face secondary sanctions. It has not, so far, moved against China or India, the two buyers whose absence from that list tells you where Washington thinks the cost to itself would be too high. It did move against the UAE branches of Egypt's Banque Misr, proposing to cut those offices off the dollar on the claim that they handled about $1.8 billion for firms tied to Iranian shadow banking between January 2024 and June 2026.

Pezeshkian's range, 25 to 35 percent, is wider than a single headline. Imports falling faster than exports is the detail that matters for daily life in Tehran. A country that cannot bring in parts, medicines and food additives feels a blockade first at the shop, then in the factory. Inflation at 66 percent is the price of that sequence.

The unseen leader

Mojtaba Khamenei's written note is the first public instruction attributed to him on the economy since he succeeded his father. He has not appeared on camera. The government now has to show that it can hold prices and keep oil moving at a fraction of last year's volume while the navy's claim on Hormuz remains the only large card left on the table. Pezeshkian did not say when trade would stop falling. He said the slump is already here.