(Aug 24): Iran’s currency weakened to an all-time low against the dollar amid a mounting US campaign to cripple the country’s economy after almost six months of war.

The rial was trading at 2.04 million per dollar on Tehran’s unregulated market on Monday, according to data from tracking website Bonbast, down 6.7% since US President Donald Trump announced a “crushing economic operation” against Tehran last week.

The currency is under pressure from a US push to isolate Iran by threatening the country’s few remaining trade partners while blockading its main ports in the Persian Gulf and strangling oil exports, a critical source of foreign currency revenue.

Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati, who last week conceded that Iran’s crude exports had “virtually stopped", sought to reassure the market on Monday.

“We have no problem securing foreign currency," the semi-official Tasnim news agency cited him as saying, adding that the bank had stockpiled reserves “in various locations” in anticipation of war.

The last major collapse in the rial’s value triggered a violent, nationwide uprising, weeks before the US and Israel launched their war on Iran. A crackdown on the protests by security forces killed thousands of people, according to human rights groups and the United Nations.

The United Arab Emirates, one of Tehran’s top trade partners, also said last week that it’s suspended all financial transactions with Iran until further notice.

“Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote in the Financial Times early Monday, warning that an “economic D-Day” would begin at dawn.

Iran’s top financial newspaper, Donya-e Eqtesad, said the currency’s drop was driven by disruption to foreign-exchange transfers and falling exports dovetailing with increased import demand and rising inflationary expectations.

China, which buys most of Iran’s oil, said US economic pressure wouldn’t work and called for a diplomatic solution to the war, which is nearing its sixth month.

Iran’s Foreign Minister signalled on Monday that Tehran would double down on trade with Chinese-aligned partners in order to resist the US pressure.

“We believe that structures such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRICS group are effective instruments for breaking the monopoly of power and moving toward a fairer international order,” Abbas Araghchi wrote in an op-ed in the state-run Ettela’at newspaper.

“Iran is determined to make the most of these opportunities,” he added.

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