US President Donald Trump violated the age-old principle of non-intereference in another state’s internal affairs by telling protesting Iranians to keep at it, as help was on the way, and urging them to ‘take over your institutions’. While the Cold War saw the USA and the USSR strongly criticise each other, neither called as openly for regime opponents to carry out a revolution. Mr Trump also tightened the screws on Iran, and implicitly admitted that sanctions already in place were not working, by imposing a 25 percent tariff on all countries dealing with Iran. This is the first time the USA is using tariffs as sanctions, and as part of the impact will be felt by ordinary Iranians, it will increase the economic difficulties which are behind the current protests.
While his rabble-rousing rhetoric affects only Iranians, the tariffs affect the whole world. Worse, they affect Iran’s neighbours. While Russia and China are bugbears of the USA, Turkiye will also be affected, even though it is like the USA a member of NATO. Another neighbour is Pakistan itself, which has got a trade of $3 billion in volume with Iran, and which Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced he wanted to see enhanced. A lot of that trade was in the shape of barter, while more involved local currency swaps. So as to avoid US sanctions. However, the gas pipeline from Iran was facing difficulties because of the sanctions. India is highly unlikely to benefit from the penal tariffs because it too has a brick trade with Iran, and is likely to be tariffed. Pakistan might find it impossible to prevent some trade occurring, especially cross-border and informal, and is faced with a choice between trading with Iran, or having its trade with the USA limited. It may be remembered that Pakistan runs its biggest trade surplus with the USA.
It seems that Mr Trump is seeking an entry in the Iranian protests. His actions only lend credence to the Iranian government’s claims that the USA is fomenting the riots. The level of unrest in Iran has reached a point where rights groups are claiming more than 500 protesters have been killed. This makes the current protests probably the worst since the 1979 Revolution itself, when about 750 were killed in Tehran, where most deaths occurred. Mr Trump should stay out of what is Iran’s internal affair.
