Trump To Block Iran’s $5 Billion IMF Loan Request

Trump To Block Iran’s $5 Billion IMF Loan Request

U.S. President Donald Trump plans to block Iran’s bid for a $5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), news reports say. The international funding organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., is currently considering an Iranian request for “emergency funding,” citing the outbreak of Wuhan Coronavirus in the country.

The request for foreign funds is surprising since the oil-rich regime sits on massive financial reserves, the Trump administration disclosed. According to senior White House officials quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Tehran already has access to reserves worth over $300 billion. The multi-billion-dollar assistance from the IMF will only go towards financing pro-Iranian terrorist groups in the Middle East, they added.

Humanitarian and medical assistance does not fall under the sanctions put in place after the American withdrawal from the Obama-era nuclear deal in 2018. In addition to these waivers, the State Department has repeated its offer of help in dealing with the recent outbreak.

The State Department, however, remains opposed to handing out fresh cash to the Shia Islamic regime, the biggest sponsor of the terrorism in the world.

“Hezbollah has fewer dollars today to engage in nefarious activity than they did when President Trump took office,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a press conference on April 7. “We will reduce the threat that Iran will ever chase a nuclear weapon in the way that they were on a path toward chasing under the previous administration.”

The Bloomberg News reported the U.S. response to Iranian loan bid:

The U.S. plans to block Iran’s request for a $5 billion emergency International Monetary Fund loan to fight coronavirus, the latest signal that the Trump administration isn’t going to ease up its maximum-pressure campaign despite a growing international outcry.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has billions of dollars stashed away that could be tapped to fight the virus, according to a senior administration official, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. Iran wouldn’t meet IMF financial transparency requirements regardless, the official said.

The Trump administration says Iran has rebuffed its offers of help. Officials have also pointed to remarks by President Hassan Rouhani that U.S. sanctions haven’t prevented Iran — one of the worst-hit nations in the pandemic — from getting the medicine it needs. (…)

Blocking the loan reflects the administration’s belief that some Iranian officials, especially Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, have tried to exploit the pandemic as part of a broader campaign to get U.S. sanctions lifted. Backed by supporters including the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, they argue that Khamenei has at least $300 billion he’s refusing to tap to fight the virus and U.S. sanctions have carve-outs for humanitarian sales to Iran.

The U.S. insistence comes in the face of increased international demands from Iranian allies China and Russia, partners in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Trump abandoned, along with some European nations, for the U.S. to relax its sanctions.

With reserves worth billions released by the Obama administration following the 2015 deal drying up, the European Union and some leading European countries have stepped up to finance the rogue regime. Last week, European countries started operating their Iran-EU payment mechanism, in direct violation of the U.S. sanctions. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom carried out their first transaction using the trading mechanism, the German Foreign Ministry confirmed.  The U.S. regards this European payment mechanism as a money laundering and terrorism financing tool.

Tehran’s request for billions of dollars comes at a time when the regime is waging war on the United States. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei declared “jihad” on America after they killed Qassem Soleimani, the chief of Iran’s terrorist Quds Force, in a U.S. airstrike. Soleimani, the mastermind of the attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad late last year, was personally responsible for the killing of over 600 American soldiers serving in Iraq, the Pentagon confirmed.

Khamenei renewed his call for jihad against the U.S. in February, urging Muslim countries to unite behind the “bold resistance by the Palestinian nation and groups to force out the Zionist enemy and the U.S. through jihad. All Muslim nations and the world of Islam must support them too.” Iran, which feigns bankruptcy in the face of the Coronavirus outbreak, vowed generous material aid to Palestinian terrorist groups targeting Israel. “So it will support them however it can and as much as it can and this support is the desire of the Islamic system and the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said.

While ordinary Iranians are suffering under the economic impact of the Coronavirus outbreak, the regime is sitting on a massive jihad war chest worth over $300 billion. The Mullahs would rather use that money to wage Holy War in neighboring countries than ease the suffering of their own people. With large sections of Iran’s economy controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), regime’s military, and international terrorism arm, the foreign aid money will inevitably go to waging armed conflicts abroad and oppressing the Iranian people at home.

Pompeo: Previous administration gave Iran ‘a lot’ of money (April 7)

[Cover image via YouTube]

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