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The Trump administration is trying to squeeze Iran's economy by targeting its most precious export, oil. President Trump wants to reduce Iran's crude exports to zero, but Iran's economy has already been in free fall for months. NPR international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam reports.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: In early December, Maryam (ph), a 43-year-old accountant from the city of Rasht, along Iran's Caspian Sea, went to visit her father in the hospital. He was in the ICU for complications from Parkinson's disease. Maryam, who did not want her last name used out of fear of government retribution, said just one day earlier her father had been alert and lively. She was stunned at how much his condition had deteriorated overnight.
MARYAM: (Through interpreter) My father was unconscious. He didn't move or wave at us as he did just one day before that. He was connected to some new machines. It was the same thing for many of the other patients in ICU.
NORTHAM: Maryam and other families asked what had gone wrong.
MARYAM: (Through interpreter) We finally found out that there had been a power cut for more than two hours, causing all the ICU machines to fail. The backup generator also didn't work.
NORTHAM: Maryam says it took her father four days to recover from the power blackout. Electricity cuts and rolling blackouts are now pervasive in Iran, affecting businesses, emergency services and the health and welfare of millions of Iranians.
MOHAMMAD MOHEBBI: (Through interpreter) They've had to shut offices, schools and some companies for many days. All of these are a great harm to the economy.
NORTHAM: That's Mohammad Mohebbi (ph), an engineer working in Iran's electricity sector for nearly 20 years. He says it's ridiculous that a country which has some of the world's largest oil and gas reserves is facing an energy crisis. Mohebbi says it's due to government missteps and crippling international sanctions.
MOHEBBI: (Through interpreter) The first and most important reason is mismanagement and corruption. Then the sanctions add to it by stopping any possibility of investments.
NORTHAM: Adnan Mazarei is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a U.S. think tank. He says the economy is also in shambles. Poverty is high, the banks are in considerable trouble and inflation is running about 30%.
ADNAN MAZAREI: The prices of food items and medicines have been rising, and they have become more scarce.
NORTHAM: Mazarei says it's unlikely the government will undertake reforms to repair the economy. He says too many players are enriching themselves in Iran.
MAZAREI: This is a government that is interested in heavy control of the economy. And corruption is systemic and has reached legendary levels.
NORTHAM: And the economic outlook is likely to get worse, says Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, a professor of economics at Virginia Tech focusing on the Middle East and Iran. He says the Trump administration recently reimposed the so-called maximum pressure campaign designed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon by increasing sanctions and cutting its oil exports to zero.
DJAVAD SALEHI-ISFAHANI: Iran dependent on oil exports to import capital goods, to import intermediate goods that runs the factories and also food and other consumer goods.
NORTHAM: President Trump says he's willing to negotiate a deal, which Salehi-Isfahani says could offer Iran some relief from sanctions. But?
SALEHI-ISFAHANI: I think a lot of advisers in Washington are telling him that Iran is very weak, and it's easy to get to agree to a bad deal from Iranian side.
NORTHAM: Salehi-Isfahani says Iran may feel pressure to join talks, but it's unlikely to sign up to anything definitive for now. Salehi-Isfahani says Iran has shown for the past four decades that it's resilient, no matter how dire the economy.
Jackie Northam, NPR News.
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