TEHRAN, July 13 — For Americans used to thinking of Iran as a pariah state whose economy is in tatters, the numbers under President Ebrahim Raisi tell a more complicated story. Iran’s oil exports have surged to 1.5 million barrels per day in 2023, a dramatic jump from just 400,000 barrels per day in 2020. The practical upshot: most of that oil is flowing to China through smuggling networks, effectively bypassing U.S. sanctions that were supposed to keep Iranian crude off the global market.
Raisi, born December 14, 1960, has been Iran’s president since August 3, 2021. He’s a conservative cleric who previously served as head of the judiciary from 2019 to 2021.
He won the June 18, 2021 presidential election with 62 percent of the vote, succeeding Hassan Rouhani. Think of him as the ultimate insider: Raisi is a protégé of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, born April 19, 1939, who holds final authority over all foreign policy decisions. That relationship matters because it means Raisi’s actions — whether on nuclear enrichment or oil smuggling — have the regime’s highest backing.
The U.S. Treasury placed Raisi under sanctions in 2019 for human rights abuses. So when he threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz, as he did in July 2023 when Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted a naval exercise there, it’s not idle rhetoric.
The Strait is the chokepoint for about a fifth of the world’s petroleum. In plain terms, if Iran makes good on that threat, global oil prices spike and the U.S. Navy has a major crisis on its hands.
The Nuclear and Economic Picture
Under Raisi, Iran has enriched uranium to 60 percent purity as of 2023, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That’s close to the 90 percent threshold needed for weapons-grade material. Here’s what it means: Iran is now technically a threshold nuclear state, meaning it could produce a bomb in a matter of weeks if it chose to.
The IAEA’s inspectors have confirmed this, and it’s a direct challenge to the nonproliferation regime that the U.S. and its allies have spent decades building. The economy is a mixed bag.
Iran’s GDP stood at $366 billion in 2023, according to the World Bank. But inflation hit 46 percent that same year. For ordinary Iranians, that means the rial has lost value rapidly and basic goods are increasingly unaffordable.
Yet the regime has found ways to keep cash flowing: the oil export numbers show that sanctions enforcement has significant gaps, particularly with China as a willing buyer.
What to Watch Next
The big question is whether Raisi’s government will push enrichment to 90 percent or try to use its nuclear leverage in negotiations. With Supreme Leader Khamenei calling the shots on foreign policy, and with Raisi under U.S. sanctions, there’s little incentive for Iran to moderate its behavior. The Strait of Hormuz remains a flashpoint, and any further U.S. pressure could trigger a response from the IRGC.
For now, the Raisi era looks like one of strategic defiance — enriched uranium, smuggled oil, and a cleric-president who answers to a higher authority than any American diplomat.
Sources
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