How US sanctions crippled lives of Iranians Trump says he wants to ‘help’

As demonstrators flood Iranian streets successful ongoing protests which started precocious past month, United States President Donald Trump has threatened subject intervention, arguing that helium wants to “help” protesters.

He wrote successful a station connected his Truth Social level connected Saturday: “Iran is looking astatine FREEDOM, possibly similar ne'er before. The USA stands acceptable to help!!!” He has since echoed those sentiments successful different nationalist statements.

But ignored successful his claims of wanting to assistance Iranians is simply a fact: decades of US-led sanctions against Iran, including ones that were toughened nether Trump, person played a cardinal relation successful the country’s economical crises that were the superior trigger for the existent spate of protests.

We unpack the interaction of US sanctions connected Iran and whether its way grounds successful the state has been 1 of helping people.

What is going connected successful Iran?

The protests successful Iran started from Tehran’s Grand Bazaar connected December 28, 2025, aft the rial plunged to a grounds debased against the US dollar. Shopkeepers shuttered their businesses to rally against rising prices successful Iran.

The protests person since dispersed to different provinces and person snowballed into a broader situation to the country’s leadership.

On Monday, the rial was trading astatine much than 1.4 cardinal to the US dollar, a crisp diminution from astir 700,000 successful January 2025 and astir 900,000 successful mid-2025.

The plummeting currency has triggered steep inflation, with nutrient prices 72 percent higher than past twelvemonth connected average.

What are the US sanctions against Iran?

Iran is 1 of the most heavy sanctioned countries successful the world.

In 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran aft 14 years of exile successful Iraq and France. Following a referendum, Iran was declared an Islamic republic.

The US archetypal imposed sanctions connected Iran successful November 1979, aft Iranian students stormed its embassy successful Tehran and took Americans hostage.

The 1979 Islamic gyration overthrew the shah, oregon monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose forces notoriously utilized repression and torture to support him successful power, without a antiauthoritarian mandate.

The US, which backed Pahlavi, had besides helped topple Iran’s democratically elected premier minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, successful 1953 successful a coup supported by US and British quality agencies.

Also successful 1979, Washington halted lipid imports from Iran and froze $12bn successful Iranian assets. Iranian products were banned from import into the US isolated from tiny gifts, informational material, foodstuffs and immoderate carpets.

In 1995, then-President Bill Clinton issued enforcement orders preventing US companies from investing successful Iranian lipid and state and trading with Iran. He banned US commercialized with Iran and concern successful the country. A twelvemonth later, the US Congress passed a instrumentality requiring that the US authorities enforce sanctions connected overseas firms investing much than $20m a twelvemonth successful Iran’s vigor sector.

In December 2006, the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions connected Iran’s commercialized successful nuclear-energy-related materials and exertion and froze the assets of individuals and companies progressive successful activities pertaining to it.

The sanctions were chiefly an effort to curtail Iran’s increasing atomic capacity, but portion programmes to enrich uranium were stopped successful 2002, they restarted successful precocious 2005. In consequent years, the UN toughened the sanctions and imposed much sanctions connected Iran. The European Union besides followed suit.

In 2015, Iran signed a atomic woody – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – with the US, EU, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom.

The woody banned uranium enrichment astatine Iran’s Fordow atomic installation and allowed lone peaceful improvement of atomic exertion for vigor accumulation successful instrumentality for the implicit lifting of sanctions.

Iran agreed to refrain from immoderate uranium enrichment and probe into it astatine Fordow for 15 years. It besides agreed not to support immoderate atomic worldly determination but alternatively to “convert the Fordow installation into a nuclear, physics and exertion centre”.

However, successful 2018, during his archetypal term, Trump announced the US withdrawal from the atomic pact and reimposed each sanctions connected Iran that were lifted nether the treaty.

In 2019, the Trump medication designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Additionally, helium imposed sanctions targeting petrochemicals, metals (steel, aluminium, copper) and elder Iranian officials. The intensifying sanctions were portion of Trump’s maximum unit run against Iran.

On January 3, 2020, the US assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the caput of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force, successful a drone onslaught successful Baghdad, Iraq. The US besides imposed further sanctions connected Iran.

The Biden administration, successful powerfulness from 2021 to 2025, kept successful spot astir US sanctions against Iran.

In September 2025, the UN sanctions were reimposed connected Iran implicit its atomic programme erstwhile the UNSC voted against permanently lifting economical sanctions connected Iran.

How person these sanctions impacted Iran?

Incomes: Iran’s gross home merchandise (GDP) per capita fell from much than $8,000 successful 2012 to astir $6,000 by 2017, and to a small supra $5,000 successful 2024, according to World Bank data.

The sharpest declines coincided with the reimposition and tightening of US sanctions nether Trump’s run from 2018 onwards, which squeezed lipid exports and entree to planetary finance.

Oil exports and revenue: Iran’s lipid exports fell by 60-80 percent aft US sanctions were reimposed, stripping the authorities of tens of billions of dollars successful yearly revenue.

Iran was exporting astir 2.2 cardinal barrels per time (mbpd) of crude lipid successful 2011. The exports fell sharply aft 2018, to an all-time debased of conscionable much than 400,000bpd successful 2020.

Exports person gradually risen to astir 1.5mbpd successful 2025, but stay beneath their pre‑2018 levels.

Currency crash: The Iranian rial has collapsed successful value. In the mid‑2010s, a dollar bought lone a fewer tens of thousands of rials connected the unfastened market. However, by 2025, it bought respective 100 thousand. Now, it tin bargain much than 1 cardinal rials.

A devalued currency tin assistance a state successful promoting its exports, but sanctions person agelong blocked a bulk of Iran’s exports. Meanwhile, the currency situation has made imports costlier, contributed to accrued inflation, and reduced capitalist confidence.

The sanctions person besides crippled Iran’s entree to dollars from fiscal markets, making it harder for it to enactment successful planetary trade.

Aviation: One of the astir disposable victims of the sanctions connected Iran has been its aviation sector. After the archetypal sanctions successful 1979, the authorities was incapable to import caller planes. Iran suffered from a spike successful deadly craft accidents done the 1980s, 90s and the aboriginal 2000s.

Between 1979 and 2023, level crashes killed much than 2,000 radical successful the country, according to the Geneva-based Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives (B3A).

Corruption: The sanctions connected Iran spurred a “sanctions economy”, oregon the peculiar mode its elite person profited from them and reshaped the country’s system astir sanctions.

Sanctions make opportunities for corruption, forcing commercialized and concern into grey and achromatic channels. For instance, lipid has to beryllium sold done intermediaries, specified arsenic beforehand companies oregon shadiness fleets. Imports and exports walk done informal channels. Public accusation astir commercialized deals is sparse.

“Sanctions person surely had a sedate impact, but I judge it’s the mode the corrupt elite person benefitted from them that has wounded mean radical most,” Maryam Alemzadeh, an subordinate prof successful past and authorities of Iran astatine the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera.

“They person created caller opportunities for corruption and fixed emergence to – sometimes nameless and faceless – moguls that person swallowed the country’s economy.”

How does this interaction people?

Iran’s mediate people – communal radical – person paid the highest price, accidental experts.

In a research insubstantial published past year, Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, an economist astatine Germany’s Marburg University, and Nader Habibi, an economist astatine Brandeis University, built a “virtual Iran” utilizing information from akin countries to exemplify the interaction of the sanctions betwixt 2012 and 2019.

They recovered that starting successful 2012, Iran’s mediate people began to shrink dramatically.

During the period, the sanctions caused an mean 17 percent points gap between the imaginable and existent size of Iran’s mediate class.

After Trump launched his maximum unit run against Iran, the mediate people shrank adjacent much dramatically. The mediate people was present 28 percent points smaller than it would person been successful the lack of sanctions.

Farzanegan told Al Jazeera that sanctions are what person led to the illness of the rial. “This decimated the purchasing powerfulness of fixed-salary earners similar teachers and civilian servants, galore of whom fell from the mediate people into the class of ‘working poor’.”

Purchasing powerfulness is the worth of money, measured by the quantity of goods and services a portion of currency tin buy.

“As ceremonial businesses contracted, workers were pushed into ‘vulnerable employment’ and informal labour, characterised by little wage and a deficiency of societal protections,” Farzanegan added.

A research nonfiction published successful 2020 shows that UN sanctions are straight associated with a marked drop successful beingness expectancy: connected average, sanctioned countries suffer astir 1.2 to 1.4 years, with women bearing a disproportionate stock of this decline.

The interaction connected Iran is successful keeping with the broader deadly interaction of sanctions: since 1970, US and EU sanctions person killed 38 cardinal people – equivalent to the colonisation of Ukraine oregon Poland – according to probe published past year.

Sanctions person disrupted medicine imports successful Iran, starring to terms spikes of up to 300 percent for immoderate indispensable drugs specified arsenic anti-seizure medications, according to probe published successful 2023.

Sanctions person besides taken a toll connected the situation successful Iran. Farzanegan explained that sanctions person hindered the adoption of cleaner substance standards and slowed greenish innovation, starring to higher levels of aerial contamination successful cities similar Tehran.

“This has had a measurable antagonistic interaction connected children’s cognitive abilities.”