IRAN-U.S. TRADE DOUBLES IN Q1 2024 AMID GAZA WAR

Sat 11 May 2024:

The official data of the United States show that the country’s trade with the Islamic Republic of Iran has doubled and grew more than 100 percent in the first quarter of this year, Iran based Tehran Times reported.

According to IRNA, the US Bureau of Statistics announced in its latest report that the trade exchange with Iran reached $27.7 million in the first three months of 2024, an increase by 103% compared to the same period last year.

Based on the same data, the exchange of bilateral trade between the two countries was at $13.6 million in the months of January to March in 2023.

The two-fold growth in Iran-US trade in the first quarter of 2024 followed a steady rise in trade exchanged between the two sides in the previous year that saw 8% growth and reached $61.2 million.

According to this report, the trade surplus is still in favor of the United States as its export to Iran increased by 77%. in the first three months of 2024 to $23.8 million compared to $13.4 million in the same period of the last year.

The country’s imports from Iran in the first quarter of this year also increased 20 times compared to the same period last year and reached $3.9 million from $0.2 million in the first quarter of 2023.

The amount of trade between Iran and the US is not significant compared to the total trade of the two countries with the rest of the world. Iran ranks 152 among the export destinations of the United States.

U.S. don’t want the Gaza war to become a regional war

The war on Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, has already expanded beyond the narrow enclave.

Iran-allied Lebanese group Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces daily. The Houthis have been firing missiles and drones at Israel-linked ships in the Red Sea, demanding an end to the war, and a US-led coalition has been targeting the Yemeni group to stem its attacks.

But the trend towards regional escalation appeared to have subsided somewhat after Iraqi armed groups halted their attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria — at the request of Tehran, according to several media reports.

A drone attack by Iran-backed Iraqi groups had killed three US soldiers at a base near the Jordan-Syria border. The US had then retaliated with a series of strikes in Iraq and Syria, but the crisis was eventually contained.

Biden does not want the US to be pulled into a war with Iran, particularly as he seeks reelection in November. But Washington’s default policy has long been to support Israel, Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs at John Hopkins University said.

“The American position is that they don’t want the war to expand. They don’t want to be dragged into a war with Iran. They don’t want the Gaza war to become a regional war,” he told Al Jazeera.

“They may be saying things to Israel behind the scenes, but I think publicly they’re trying to warn Iran not to escalate the war as well.”