Iran’s currency plummeted to new lows on Monday as the US is set to announce further sanctions on the Islamic republic, whose citizens are now rushing to exchange lines to save their cash.

The rial dropped to 2.02 million to one US dollar when the currency markets opened on Monday, meaning the currency is now worth about half of what it was at the start of the year.

The continued plunge during nearly six months of war has led Iranians in Tehran to sprint for the exchange markets in hopes of getting US bills before their rial falls even further.

“There is no hope for a deal and peace,” Sadegh Mahmoudi, 73, told the Associated Press as he waited at an exchange line in downtown Tehran.

Iran’s rial has been in a free fall since last November due to years of Western sanctions and persistently high inflation, factors that have only gotten worse during the war.

While Iran’s official Central Bank rate stands at 1.5 million rial to the dollar, the market rate is what the average Iranian pays.

“President Trump decimated Iran’s economy to a point where the rial has never been weaker and inflation has rarely been higher,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote Sunday in an opinion piece in the Financial Times.

“The regime’s final refuge now lies in the self-deception of fearful nations that still believe accommodating aggression can secure a durable peace,” he added.

Bessent warned that the additional financial penalties to come would effectively “collapse the regime,” with Trump echoing the same threat on social media.  

“IRAN IS COMPLETELY COLLAPSING!!!” the president wrote on Truth Social.

With the United Arab Emirates, Iran’s largest trading partner, suspending all trade with Tehran, officials within the Islamic republic have threatened retaliation over the economic blows.

“Any escalation of this situation will undoubtedly bring about consequences,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters on Monday. “Our hands are not tied.”

With Post Wires