Rafsanjani Junior on the Perils of Sanctions Evasion

While official Iranian media outlets celebrate President Ebrahim Raisi’s efforts to exclude the U.S. dollar from Iran’s trade as a means of bypassing sanctions, Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, warns of the perils of nondollar exports.

• June 28: In an interview with reformist daily Etemad, Rafsanjani argued:
  • “Over the course of the past year, particularly during officials’ foreign visits, the media has widely reported on the Raisi Cabinet’s agreements with various foreign governments, including some in East Asia, about excluding the U.S. dollar from trade and replacing it with national currencies … It is not yet clear if such agreements are serious … but they are a reminder of the experiences under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
  • “At the time, Iran exported its oil and related petroleum products to a certain country and in return received local currency, such as Chinese yuan, in its bank accounts in China. Then, Iran would use this currency to purchase products from this country. In other words … the yuan simply replaced the dollar without the counterpart using Iranian currency. This one-sided relationship was unbalanced and harmful to Iran’s national currency.”
  • “If our energy exports are to countries that are not necessarily consumers of our oil and gas, these countries import them for reexport purposes and will act as middlemen of Iranian oil sales to consuming countries … Because of these middlemen, we will receive less money for our products.”
  • “Since we do not have access to a credible foreign currency, we will be compelled to purchase subpar products in the local markets of the countries we export our oil to.”
  • Rafsanjani concluded that the current state of affairs benefits the few individuals engaged in sanctions busting and their middlemen rather than Iran as a whole.

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