The US blockade is putting “enormous pressure on Iran”, where inflation has exceeded 50%. The confident message from the White House
The US blockade targeting Iranian ports is working, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on Sunday, stressing that the United States is trying to put pressure on Tehran, according to CBS News.
President Donald Trump, Hassett said, “sees that the blockade is working, it's putting an enormous amount of pressure on Iran.”
“I think there's no reason, right now, to do anything other than what we're doing,” added Kevin Hassett.
An economy 'on the brink of extreme calamity'
The White House's top economic adviser says Tehran's threats to mine the Strait of Hormuz have prevented humanitarian aid from reaching Iran, and that Iran's economy is “on the brink of an external calamity”.
He said Iran was facing “hyperinflation” and “famine”.
Despite the truce that took effect on April 8, the US military continued to block Iranian ports, disrupting oil shipments to the country, whose inflation has exceeded 50 percent, according to the national statistics center, cited by Reuters.
Iran's rial fell to a record low against the dollar this week, according to currency monitoring agencies, and a labor official said 191,000 people had filed for unemployment after losing their jobs due to the effects of the war.
As prices rise and jobs disappear, Iranians say essential goods like food and medicine are becoming unaffordable, CNN reported Sunday.
The naval blockade, a tool of kinetic but also economic warfare
The blockade, which in this case applies to all Iranian ports, whether inside or outside the Strait of Hormuz, is as much a tool of economic warfare as it is a tool of kinetic warfare, explained CNN International journalist Brad Lendon specializing in global military affairs.
The Newport Manual on the Law of Naval Warfare defines a blockade as “the seizure of contraband and the capture or destruction of enemy property found at sea.”
“These methods deprive an enemy of the chance to derive economic income from his exports and the benefits of imports that support his war effort,” according to the manual.
