Iran admits Trump’s sanctions WILL damage economy ‘US wants to bring us to our knees’

Presenting Iran’s budget to Parliament on Tuesday, Mr Rouhani warned US sanctions would adversely affect Iranians’ lives and destroy the country’s economy. He said: “America’s goal is to bring Iran’s Islamic system to its knees… and it will fail in this, but sanctions will no doubt affect people’s lives, and the country’s development and economic growth.” Mr Rouhani made the dire warning as he announced the country’s annual state budget. He gave the value of the draft budget at about 4,700 trillion rials for the next Iranian year, starting next year on 21 March.

Mr Rouhani said state employees would get a 20 percent pay raise next year and the budget included £11 billion (US$14 billion) in subsidies to provide cheap basic goods such as food and medicine, up from £10.25 billion (US$13 billion) in the current year’s state budget.

Officials said the budget is designed to provide for the basic needs of low-income groups, including state employees and pensioners, support production and employment and seek to relaunch thousands of stalled state projects with the help of private investors.

Mr Rouhani’s statement comes after Mr Trump pulled the US out of the the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran, including on its vital oil industry.

Earlier in September, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif warned his country will pull out of the nuclear pact if member states did not comply with its terms.

Writing on Twitter, he said: “If preserving JCPOA is the goal, then there is no escape from mustering the courage to comply with commitment to normalise Iran’s economic relations instead of making extraneous demands.

“Being the party to still honoUr the deal in deeds & not just words is not Iran’s only option.”

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 by the UK, US, Russia, France, China, and Germany – with all member countries vowing to limit their nuclear capabilities in exchange for lifting crippling economic sanctions.

In May, Mr Trump withdrew from the agreement, insisting it was “not a fair deal” and said Iran posed a serious security threat.

At the time, the US President said: “It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of this deal.

“The Iran deal is defective to its core.”