TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s currency, the rial, fell on Wednesday to an all-time low as former President Donald Trump was on the verge of clinching the U.S. presidency again.
The rial traded at 703,000 rials to the dollar.
In 2015, at the time of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, it was at 32,000 to $1. On July 30, the day that Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian was sworn in and started his term, the rate was 584,000 to $1.
Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking years of tensions between the countries that persist today.
The slide comes as Iran’s economy has struggled for years under crippling international sanctions over its rapidly advancing nuclear program, which now enriches uranium at near weapons-grade levels.
Pezeshkian, elected after a helicopter crash killed hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi in May, came to power on a promise to reach a deal to ease Western sanctions.
However, Iran’s government has for weeks been trying to downplay the effect on Tehran of whoever won Tuesday’s election in the United States. That stance continued on Wednesday with a brief comment from Fatemeh Mohajerani, a spokeswoman for Pezeshkian’s administration.
”The election of the U.S. president doesn’t have anything specifically to do with us,” she said. “The major policies of America and the Islamic Republic are fixed, and they won’t heavily change by people replacing others. We have already made necessary preparations in advance.”
But tensions remain high between the nations, 45 years after the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover and 444-day hostage crisis that followed.
Iran remains locked in the Mideast wars roiling the region, with its allies battered — militant groups and fighters of its self-described “Axis of Resistance,” including the militant Palestinian Hamas, lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Israel is pressing its war in the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas and its invasion of Lebanon amid devastating attacks against Hezbollah. At the same time, Iran still appears to be assessing damage from Israel’s strikes on the Islamic Republic on Oct. 26 in response to two Iranian ballistic missile attacks.
Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel — where U.S. troops now man a missile defense battery.
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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
Amir Vahdat And Nasser Karimi, The Associated Press