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Reza Shahrestani told Etemad Online Wednesday that in the first four months of the Iranian calendar year (started March 21), Iran’s steel exports dropped by 900,000 tons in comparison with the same four months in the previous year. During March 2021-March 2022 Iran exported a total of 4.2 million tons of various types of steel. The drop has reduced export revenues by $700 million, he said.

“We will lose our markets if this trend continues in the coming months,” he warmed while predicting a total loss of $2.5 billion in export revenues for the whole year if the trend continues.

Shahrestani blamed the government for imposing heavy export duties after steel prices rose in international markets due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “They didn't heed our advice no matter how strongly we objected to their decision arguing that Russia was dumping its steel products in international markets by offering huge discount.”

Shahrestani told Shargh newspaper in Tehran in May that Iran’s biggest customers --China, Afghanistan, Thailand and South Korea -- had shifted their orders to Russia as it was offering discounts of 15-20 percent on its steel and the impact on Iran’s traditional markets was already noticeable.

According to a report by the World Steel Association in June, Iran's crude steel production had dropped 17.6% year-on-year in May to 2.3 million tons following a plunge of 20.7 percent to 2.2 million tons in April.

The decline in Iran’s crude steel production in April and May impacted its overall number for 2022. While its production level was normal until end of March, the reduction in that month turned its balance sheet negative for 2022. It produced 11.4 million tons of raw steel in January-May 2022, about 10.8% less than the same period in 2021. Iran is the tenth largest producer of crude steel in the world

Shahrestani also pointed out that few international companies trade with Iran's steelmakers due to US sanctions and the need to circumvent them. “Many European, Japanese, and Korean companies will not trade with us. [On the other hand,] Russia stole our markets with huge discounts when it was sanctioned, and we lost our opportunities.”

He refused to disclose the names of the countries that import steel from Iran despite the sanctions. “Due to the sanctions such statistics better not be published. But many neighbouring countries and countries in the Far East trade with us,” he added.

Shahrestani told Etemad Online that revival of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) with world powers, can have a positive impact on reviving steel exports.

Domestic demand for steel is currently sluggish because the market is waiting for a nuclear agreement and there is uncertainty about foreign exchange rates, he said. Without a deal the exchange rate the US dollar can jump by as much as 50 percent which can harm the steel industry.

Amid United States' sanctions on Iran's oil exports, steel is one of the main exports earning foreign currency for the government, which faces a serious financial crunch.

Iran has tried to compensate for loss of oil revenue by boosting non-crude exports of petrochemicals and steel in the four years since former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 deal and imposed oil export sanctions.

In a Saturday rally among his supporters in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Trump said, “Iran was dying to make a deal with me. I would have had a deal done with Iran one week after the election.”

Criticizing the possible financial benefits of such a deal for the Islamic Republic, he said that “now we’re going to pay them hundreds of billions of dollars, and they’re going to have nuclear weapons within a short period of time. Honestly, they can’t be stupid; they must hate our country.”

He also denounced Biden’s policies that are "allowing Iran to build a massive nuclear weapon.”

Moreover, Trump praised China’s President Xi Jinping for ruling the Chinese people with an iron fist, remarks that prompted Mohammad Marandi, an advisor-cum-spokesman for Iranian negotiators, to respond. “Your regime has bloodied much of the world with an iron fist,” he tweeted on Sunday. 

Trump concluded by repeating his chorus, saying “Iran, China, Russia and North Korea weren't going to do a thing against us just two years ago,” but now “we're a nation that is no longer respected or listened to around the world.” 

Hassan Rouhani, the only Iranian president who has ever spoken to a US president, was quoted as saying that he had a chance to talk with Trump when he was in New York in 2019. Rouhani talked with Barack Obama over the phone in September 2013. 

On Thursday, September 1, a bipartisan group of 50 US lawmakers sounded the alarm on a looming agreement with Iran,urging the administration to immediately consult with Congress.

In a long unsigned article, IRNA insisted that Iran’s positions in the nuclear talks have not changed and quoted remarks by President Ebrahim Raisi made earlier in the week. It said the president had insisted on four conditions: Removing United States’ sanctions, verification, reassuring guarantees and shelving IAEA demands on safeguards.

Recent optimistic assessments tended to assume that agreement was reached on most of these issues, except the demand of the International Atomic Energy Agency to receive satisfying answers from Tehran on its past undeclared nuclear activities.

IRNA said that based on the four conditions Iran sent its response on Thursday to the EU coordinator of the talks, Enrique Mora and hours later the United States in a “hasty” move called Iran’s response “not constructive”. It claimed that earlier Western sides had agreed that Iran’s demands on lifting sanctions and closing the IAEA file were reasonable.

IRNA specifically cited comments by European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on August 22 that had called Iran’s earlier response of August 15 “reasonable”.

The article concluded by saying that the delay in an agreement is solely due to “America’s internal problems” and “weakness in the Biden Administration's decision making.”

President Joe Biden faces domestic opposition to reviving the JCPOA, but Iran has also insisted on concessions that in some cases go beyond the JCPOA framework.

Mohammad Marandi, who acts as de facto spokesman for the Islamic Republic’s nuclear negotiating team, said in a tweet on Friday that “It's time for the Biden team to make a serious decision.”

Noting that If the United States makes “the right decision, an agreement can be swiftly concluded,” he said that “For the US 'constructive' usually means accepting US terms; for Iran it means a deal that is balanced and protected.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said early on Friday that Tehran has sent a "constructive" response to US proposals, but the US State Department gave a different assessment.

"We can confirm that we have received Iran's response through the EU," a White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. "We are studying it and will respond through the EU, but unfortunately it is not constructive,” adding that "Some gaps have closed in recent weeks, but others remain."

Also on Friday, Tasnim news, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, quoted Ebrahim Azizi, the deputy chairman of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, as saying that the US should decide whether it wants to finalize the agreement or not. “Iran's most important demand is economic benefit,” he said, reiterating that “the safeguard issues must be also resolved and all allegations about Iran's nuclear issue must be dropped.”

The group, comprised of 34 Democrats and 16 Republicans led by Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), wrote to President Joe Biden on Thursday to express deep concern about reported provisions in the potential agreement with the Islamic Republic that they described as “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.” “If the regime in Iran has proven anything, it's that it can’t be trusted,” they said. 

Their concerns include weakening the effectiveness of terrorism-related sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and allowing Russia to have a role in nuclear projects with Iran — including a $10-billion contract to build atomic reactors.

“The IRGC has directly, or through its proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah (Houthis), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and scores of Shiite militias in Iraq, killed hundreds of Americans, and attacked our bases and our allies in the region,” they said, noting that an estimated one trillion dollars in sanctions relief over a decade would strengthen Iran and the IRGC as an enormous danger to Americans at home and abroad. 

They also criticized the deal for enabling Russia to be “the de facto judge of compliance and the keeper of Iran’s enriched uranium, without any oversight mechanisms by the United States or our European partners.”