US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday he discussed the need for freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz with UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Rubio said the meeting took place during the British royal family’s visit to the United States.
Iran’s worsening economic crisis is drawing unusually blunt warnings from state media and establishment voices as war, inflation and shortages squeeze households and expose the limits of the government’s response.
The exchange rate for the US dollar surged again on Wednesday, April 29, climbing above 1.8 million rials.
That same day in downtown Tehran, a single fried egg cost one million rials and a hamburger five million—prices that bite hard in a city where minimum wage is just above 200 million rials a month.
“What is going on in this country, Mr. Pezeshkian?” state TV anchor Elmira Sharifi asked earlier this week, staring directly into the camera after reporting that many Iranians can no longer afford basic staples such as rice, sugar, cooking oil, fruit, dairy products and medicine.
Iran’s oil minister said on Wednesday there was no concern over fuel supply and distribution despite the US naval blockade.
Mohsen Paknejad said Iran had managed fuel consumption effectively, adding that many countries adopt similar measures during wartime.
He also said the US blockade violated international law and would not succeed.
Iran’s worsening economic crisis is drawing unusually blunt warnings from state media and establishment voices as war, inflation and shortages squeeze households and expose the limits of the government’s response.
The exchange rate for the US dollar surged again on Wednesday, April 29, climbing above 1.8 million rials.
That same day in downtown Tehran, a single fried egg cost one million rials and a hamburger five million—prices that bite hard in a city where minimum wage is just above 200 million rials a month.
“What is going on in this country, Mr. Pezeshkian?” state TV anchor Elmira Sharifi asked earlier this week, staring directly into the camera after reporting that many Iranians can no longer afford basic staples such as rice, sugar, cooking oil, fruit, dairy products and medicine.
Had President Masoud Pezeshkian been watching, he might have been startled. State television rarely addresses officials so directly or publicly demands accountability. But he is no stranger to criticism. Calls for answers have become routine in the press and on social media.
His administration inherited a vast budget deficit, soaring inflation, high unemployment and widespread shortages. Those problems have worsened since he took office in 2024.
The war with the United States and Israel has deepened the crisis further, accelerating shortages, disrupting supply chains and giving officials a ready explanation for an economy already in freefall.
The government’s efforts to ease the burden have been criticized as too slow and too limited. Its latest initiative asks some supermarkets to offer goods on credit to customers unable to pay in cash.
Fars News, an outlet affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, reported Tuesday that the government had approved a plan allowing households receiving cash subsidies to buy goods on credit, with repayments deducted from future handouts if necessary.
The measure, it said, is intended to support livelihoods and offset the economic consequences of the war.
But the plan has obvious flaws. It applies only to supermarkets that volunteer to participate, and repayments must be made within two months. More importantly, the monthly subsidy itself—worth less than seven dollars per person—barely buys anything.
Iran tried something similar in the 1980s during the war with Iraq, when cooperatives linked to ministries and the armed forces allowed employees to buy goods on credit and repay through their salaries.
Combined with ration books and coupons for essentials sold well below market rates, the system was widely seen as more efficient and more trusted than today’s improvised measures.
The announcement of the new credit-shopping plan came the same day Ettela’at, one of Iran’s oldest newspapers, issued a stark warning.
“The outlook of the war is entirely uncertain, and officials must focus on people’s livelihoods,” the paper wrote.
It warned that surging prices for essential goods, combined with unemployment, labor-market stagnation and the collapse of large parts of the production and supply chain due to war damage, had created a severe crisis.
The nationwide internet shutdown has only made matters worse.
Ettela’at said the current ceasefire could hold, collapse into a limited maritime conflict or spiral into broader war. In any scenario, it wrote, ensuring the livelihood, education, healthcare, security, food, housing, transportation, utilities, communications and employment of nearly 90 million Iranians requires urgent planning and “round-the-clock management.”
The paper concluded with another warning: the government may soon need special economic programs for wartime conditions, and they must be implemented urgently.
Whether officials can move fast enough—or govern coherently enough—to avert deeper hardship is another question.
US President Donald Trump told Axios that he would keep Iran under a naval blockade until Tehran agreed to a deal addressing US concerns over its nuclear program.
“The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing,” Trump was quoted as saying. “They are choking like a stuffed pig. And it is going to be worse for them. They can't have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump said Iran wanted a deal to lift the blockade, but added he did not want to do so unless Tehran was prevented from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
"They want to settle. They don't want me to keep the blockade. I don't want to [lift the blockade], because I don't want them to have a nuclear weapon," he said.
Axios also cited three sources as saying that US Central Command (CENTCOM) had prepared a plan for a "short and powerful" wave of strikes on Iran to break the deadlock in negotiations.
The sources added that Trump had not yet ordered any kinetic action as of Tuesday night.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the Iran war before Congress on Wednesday, rejecting criticism that the conflict had become a quagmire.
“You call it a quagmire, handing propaganda to our enemies? Shame on you for that statement,” Hegseth told the House Armed Services Committee.
He accused Democratic lawmakers critical of the war, of being “reckless, feckless, and defeatist.”