Iran’s rial continued its slide on Saturday, hitting an all-time low against the U.S. dollar amid uncertainty over Donald Trump’s presidency and tensions with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program.
The Iranian rial fell to about 42,002 on the official market, while recorded 756,000 to the dollar on the parallel market on Saturday, compared with 741,500 on Friday, according to Bonbast.com, a website that tracks exchange rates. The dollar is selling for about 755,000 rials, according to bazar360.com.
Faced with an official inflation rate of about 35%, Iranians seeking safe havens for their savings are buying dollars, other hard currencies, gold or cryptocurrencies, suggesting further headwinds for the rial.
The dollar has risen against the rial since trading at around 690,000 rials in early November amid concerns that once Trump is inaugurated in January he will reimpose a “maximum pressure” policy against Iran with tougher sanctions and enable Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites.
The Iranian currency has fallen again after the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors approved a European-backed resolution against Tehran — raising the risk of new sanctions — and after the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime Iranian ally.
Trump in 2018 abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama and reimposed U.S. economic sanctions on Iran that had been eased. The deal limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, a process that can produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.
The Iranian rial has lost more than 90% of its value since the sanctions were reimposed in 2018.
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