Washington, DC —“The cost [of Iran sanctions] to the United States has been between 134.7 million and 175.3 million since 1995 to 2012,” said Dr. Trita Parsi, of the National Iranian American Council, speaking at a NIAC briefing on Capitol Hill this week.
NIAC provided a special preview of a new report, “Losing Billions – The Cost of Iran Sanctions to the U.S. Economy,” to a group of over fifty Congressional staffers. According to the report, sanctions on Iran have cost the United States between 55,000 and 67,000 job opportunities annually.
“No action that we take vis-a-vis Iran is cost free,” observed Reza Marashi, NIAC Research Director. “So In order to avoid the mistakes that we made in run up to Iraq war and after the Iraq war, let’s have a conversation now.”
Research consultant Jonathan Leslie explained the methodology for the report, which utilizes the Gravity model of trade and economic data from the International Monetary Fund data from between 1995 to 2012 .
Attendees were interested in what role Congress would play in regarding sanctions relief under a nuclear deal with Iran. “Under a scenario that all countries are on board with the deal, the President is on board with the deal but Congress is not, the Europeans will break away from the United States,” said Dr. Parsi. “Congress will break the unity of the P5+1 and the biggest winners of that would unfortunately be hardliners in Iran.”
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