Young people want jobs

**Andrew Peach** (0:00)
More US sanctions on Iran.

**Claire O'Neill McCleskey** (0:02)
Energy, the Iranian banking sector, metals and mining, all the key sectors of the Iranian economy.

**Tarane Fethalian** (0:09)
Prices have quadrupled over the past few months. They're wondering how much worse it could be.

**Andrew Peach** (0:15)
It's World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
This is Andrew Peach on the way as President Trump says he'll declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory. We'll look at the sanctions already in place and what other options Washington has. Also today, the Indonesian president vows state intervention in his country's troubled economy. And we'll look at the issue of youth unemployment around the world.
In the last hour, President Trump has urged Americans to accept higher petrol prices as the cost of preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He also said he would soon declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory. Earlier, the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, threatened to subject Iran to more economic isolation. He didn't give further details, but said the new measures could be announced next week. In a moment, we'll look at what further sanctions the US could have in mind. But first, to find out more about the economic impact the conflict is already having on the Iranian people, I went to visit BBC Persian. So I've come to the fifth floor of Broadcasting House in London, where our BBC Persian colleagues are based. I've come to see Tarane Fethalian. Just give us a sense first of all of what your role is here, Tarane. What do you do when you're not talking to me?

**Tarane Fethalian** (1:32)
Well, Andrew, I'm working with the BBC Persian digital team. What we're doing is getting user generated content or UGC, as we say it, from our audiences all around the world, our Persian speaking audiences all around the world. And we monitor social media.

**Andrew Peach** (1:51)
So as the US and the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, starts talking about more economic consequences for Iran to be announced next week, I wanted to ask what the consequences of the conflict are already for people in Iran. What are they experiencing in terms of everyday life as a result of it?

**Tarane Fethalian** (2:12)
The economy of Iran is already crippling. People are under immense pressure.
I'm hearing on social media that the basic goods, the essentials are becoming unaffordable. People are cutting corners, cutting edges everywhere. I was speaking to some women and they said that they've just like stopped buying sanitary products, period products because they just have to choose between food and hygiene, basically. And they were looking into like other options, cheaper options. Petrol prices are about to have a spike. There are reports about the price rise in petrol already. And that is in an economy that, as I said, was already like hitting rock bottom.

**Andrew Peach** (3:03)
So huge consequences already for people. And do you get the sense that people are worried about what the Americans are saying and people monitoring that and thinking, oh, it's going to get even worse? Or does it just feel like, you know, high level talk to people in Iran, do you think?

**Tarane Fethalian** (3:18)
The thing is, on a public, because they're already experiencing so much, because they've already hitting the rock bottom, it's difficult to imagine how worse it could be at the moment, because people are thinking that already the prices have quadrupled over the past few months. How worse they... They already can't afford anything. So they're wondering how much worse it could be.

**Andrew Peach** (3:48)
Are there things you can't get at all? I mean, you've talked about high prices, but are there things that just aren't available?

**Tarane Fethalian** (3:54)
I'm seeing here and there that some medications, medicines are unavailable, and if they are, the prices have gone up.
I've spoken to some cancer patients, and they said that their cancer treatment, their medication, either have become unavailable, or their price has doubled since February, before the war, and there are some products that here and there are here that they're becoming rarer. They say that food and other essentials, they are available. There hasn't been any shortage just yet, but the prices are high.

**Andrew Peach** (4:34)
My thanks to Taranae Fathaly from BBC Persian for having me in the department earlier. Now, Claire O'Neill McCleskey is the co-founder of Clarity Compliance Consulting. She formerly headed the US's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
I asked her what US sanctions are in place against Iran right now.

**Claire O'Neill McCleskey** (4:52)
Functionally, Iran is completely cut off from the US economy, right? There's very limited economic activity that is allowed between the two countries, mostly humanitarian activity, you know, some medical activity or agricultural, and then of course things related to, you know, people immigrating from Iran, settling their estates there. Really anything outside of that is not allowed right now.