Sanctions on Iran trade will ease this year as the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed Iran is minding the terms of its deal to curb its nuclear development program.
That deal is meant to close off “every single path Iran had to building a bomb,” as President Obama put it. It was negotiated by the P5+1: the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US – plus Germany.
What happens now? For US business, not too much. In the past year, US exports to Iran have been largely limited to meeting humanitarian needs. There were no US imports from Iran.
The US has eased some nuclear sanctions by executive order, including freeing Iranian assets held in the international financial systems and lifting sanctions aimed at non-US citizens doing business with Iran.
But, for the most part, restrictions remain in place on US trade with Iran. There are some exceptions in the January 16 order: the possibility of waivers for US importers of food and floor coverings from Iran and, on a case-by-case basis, permission to export commercial passenger aircraft to Iran.
The EU, on the other hand, will be far more liberal in removing barriers to importing petroleum from Iran – and to opening the Iranian market to its companies, as CNN Money reports.
For US business, the lifting of sanctions on Iran is likelier to mean the return of a competitor – especially in oil and petrochemicals – than the prospect of new customers for the time being. [See, for example, our blog’s coverage of trade in polyethylene here.]
We’ve put together one of our “Quick Look” reports – reports that provide baseline data for gauging the impact of market events – on Iran’s imports and exports from 2007 through late 2015. Datamyne Quick Look at Iran Import-Export Trade covers Iran’s trading partners, imports and exports, as well as data on trade with the US, the EU and top trade partner China, as here:
Think of it as a “before” snapshot to compare with what happens in global trade “after” sanctions on Iran are lifted. You can download our free report here. To see more detailed or updated data, just ask us.