As damage from the war batters Iran’s economy, its leaders still think Trump will blink first

Open this photo in gallery:People shop at the Tajrish Bazaar in Tehran on April 16. Hundreds of thousands have lost jobs and millions more are at risk, even as Iranians face skyrocketing prices.ARASH KHAMOOSHI/The New York TimesShareSave for laterPlease log in to bookmark this story.Log InCreate Free AccountIn the heartland of Iran’s famed carpet-making industry, manufacturing has ground to a near halt. Dairies struggle to find packages for milk and butter. Giant steel mills that once drove Iran’s economy have gone silent. Hundreds of thousands have lost jobs and millions more are at risk.Over more than five weeks of bombardment, U.S. and Israeli strikes hit thousands of factories. The damage is reverberating across Iran’s economy, threatening increasing waves of layoffs, even as Iranians face skyrocketing prices. The cost of chicken is up 75 per cent the past month, and beef and lamb jumped 68 per cent. Many dairy products have increased by half.It could get worse as the United States blockades Iranian ports, choking off many imports and oil exports that bring in billions of dollars. Economic woes sparked the mass protests that were crushed before the war and could again push Iranians into the streets.Trump unhappy with Iran’s latest proposal to set aside nuclear deal until war endsStill, Iran has its own weapon pointed at the global economy, with its grip on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s leaders say they will only reopen the key waterway for global energy if the blockade is lifted and the war ends. They are betting that an economy built to be self-reliant under decades of international sanctions can endure the pain longer than U.S. President Donald Trump.Iran has lost at least 1 million jobs directly because of the war, Deputy Labor Minister Gholamhossein Mohammadi said, according to state media.But the ripple effects put some 10 million to 12 million jobs at risk – half of Iran’s labour force – warns Hadi Kahalzadeh, an Iranian economist.Open this photo in gallery:People shop for produce at the Tajrish Bazaar in Tehran on April 16.ARASH KHAMOOSHI/The New York TimesSteel and petrochemical production crippledIsrael claimed to have struck the industrial base of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. But the strikes went well beyond, hitting facilities not owned by the force.Air strikes damaged 20,000 factories, some 20 per cent of the country’s production units, according to Kahalzadeh, a research fellow at Brandeis University. The stricken facilities included Tofigh Daru, Iran’s largest pharmaceutical holding, producing anticancer drugs among other things. Optics and chemical developers, and aluminum and cement factories, were also hit.Perhaps most damaging, Israel hit Iran’s biggest steelmaking and petrochemical factories, most of them in a wave of strikes just before the April 8 ceasefire. The two biggest steel producers, Mobarakeh Steel and Khuzestan Steel, as well as smaller mills, halted production. More than 50 petrochemical complexes have been shut down, according to Iran’s semiofficial Jamaran news agency.That has crippled Iran’s two biggest non-oil exports, and higher prices have affected everything from plastics to pipes, to fabrics and packaging for groceries like milk, butter and cheese.Strikes are not the only cause of economic woes. The internet has largely been shut down since the protests, gutting small and medium-sized businesses reliant on online sales. Even before the U.S. blockade, Iranian strikes on the United…

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