Dollar Pressure And Street Protests: How Washington’s Sanctions Strategy Hit Iran’s Currency

When US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent openly said that Washington had “created a dollar shortage” in Iran, he put unusually direct language to a policy that has long operated through financial mechanisms rather than military force. His remarks linked the collapse of the Iranian rial, the surge in inflation and the wave of protests in late 2025 and early 2026 to the Trump administration’s renewed “maximum pressure” campaign.

The protests began on December 28, when shopkeepers in Tehran closed their businesses after the currency fell to a record low.
Demonstrations quickly spread to other provinces as living costs soared. The government responded with a sweeping crackdown in which more than 6,800 protesters, including at least 150 children, are believed to have been killed.