Yesterday, I had posted this, looking at Iranian claims that trade with the United States has more than doubled.
Well, Rich’s trade guy shot me an email with an excellent explanation:
I fact-checked this against U.S. trade data and policies: The increase is due to U.S. exports of wheat to Iran, which were apparently approved on a one-shot basis in August 2008 and appear to be continuing. The Wall Street Journal says that Iran, which hadn’t bought wheat from the U.S. since 1981-82, and has been self-sufficient in recent years, faced a drought and was unable to find supplies elsewhere during last year’s global food price spike. U.S. sanctions (.pdf) on Iran, as described by Treasury, prohibit “virtually all trade” but do allow exports of U.S. agricultural goods under special license. The wheat exports account for almost all of the increase of U.S. exports from $143 million in 2007 to $682 million in 2008 and $59 million in Jan-March 2009. U.S. imports from Iran are, per the regulation, restricted almost entirely to carpets and foodstuffs. We are buying less of these: U.S. imports from Iran were $173 million in 2007, $102 million in 2008 and $18 million in Jan-March 2009.