Why will US block Iran’s requests for coronavirus aid?

In mid-March, Iran asked its first loan since 1962 from the International Monetary Fund to counter the outbreak of the new Corona virus, which has infected more than 79,000 people in the country.

On April 8, it renewed its call to borrow $ 5 billion. On April 9, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani indicated that there should be no discrimination in approving loan requests, describing the US pressure campaign to reject the loan as “a historical shame,” in conjunction with a campaign by Iranian media accusing Washington of obstructing approval of the loan.

Tehran started its membership in the International Monetary Fund in 1945, and a research paper released this April to Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for the American objection to the IMF loan to Iran, indicates that the Mullahs have three other options that they can withdraw from the fund without the need Borrowing: immediate access to $ 2.8 billion of funds from the International Monetary Fund and they are 700 million in the “reserve segment” and $ 2.1 billion in “special drawing rights,” yet it did not use that reserve to solve its recent economic crises, Emphasizing that Tehran has many resources that it can access Hee Corona virus outbreak.

And the possibility of special drawing rights in which Iran has 1551.64 million dollars, is a complementary reserve asset for private official assets as defined by the Fund and the value of the special drawing right is determined according to a basket of five currencies: “the US dollar, the euro, the Chinese yuan, the Japanese yen, and the British pound”, and the dividend rights can also be distributed Private sector to contribute in providing liquidity and supplementing the official reserves of member countries.

Patrick Clawson continues in his report that the United States is concerned about the long sale of the mullahs ’regime in Tehran from transferring medicine money and medical support to terrorism support. Last March, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that Iranian regime officials stole nearly one billion euros allocated For medical supplies, they also take advantage of the people’s need for gloves and other medical equipment to sell them at a higher price on the black market.

The researcher added that despite Washington’s objection to the loan, but it is not able to cancel it from the ground, then through the reports of the US Treasury Department about its support or opposition to the loans of the fund, there are no examples of the success of the US objection to the “International Monetary Fund Executive Board.

Meanwhile, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund, stated in his April video with CNN that the priority of aid to countries suffering more from the emerging coronavirus, and that the primary fund’s goal is to protect citizens and then The economy, and that the humanitarian crisis is the largest, especially countries that suffer from weak institutions, infrastructure and health systems, so in some countries they have needs that we cannot appreciate, so we motivate some donors to give them gifts, not loans.