Tehran — US President Donald Trump warned countries against doing business with Iran on Tuesday as he hailed the “most biting sanctions ever imposed”, triggering a mix of anger, fear and defiance in Tehran.

“The Iran sanctions have officially been cast. These are the most biting sanctions ever imposed, and in November they ratchet up to yet another level,” Trump wrote in an early morning tweet.

“Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States. I am asking for WORLD PEACE, nothing less.”

Within hours of the sanctions taking effect, German automaker Daimler said it was halting its business activities in Iran.

Trump’s withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear agreement in May had already spooked investors and triggered a run on the Iranian rial long before nuclear-related sanctions went back into force.

In a statement on Monday before the sanctions were reimposed, Trump said: “The Iranian regime faces a choice. Either change its threatening, destabilizing behavior and reintegrate with the global economy, or continue down a path of economic isolation. I remain open to reaching a more comprehensive deal that addresses the full range of the regime’s malign activities, including its ballistic missile program and its support for terrorism.”

But his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rohani dismissed the idea of talks while crippling sanctions were in effect.

“If you’re an enemy and you stab the other person with a knife, and then you say you want negotiations, then the first thing you have to do is remove the knife,” he told state television..

But many large European firms are leaving Iran for fear of US penalties, and Trump warned of “severe consequences” for firms and individuals that continued to do business with Iran.

Daimler said it had “suspended our already limited activities in Iran in accordance with the applicable sanctions”.

There is also mounting pressure at home, where US hostility has helped fuel long-running discontent over high prices, unemployment, water shortages and the lack of political reform.

Those protests have proliferated over the past week, though verifiable information is scarce due to heavy reporting restrictions.

Most Iranians see US hostility as a basic fact of life, so their frustration is largely directed at their own leaders for not handling the situation better. “Prices are rising again, but the reason is government corruption, not US sanctions,” said Ali, a 35-year-old decorator in Tehran.

Many hope and believe that Iran’s leaders will need to “drink the poison cup” and negotiate with the US eventually.

Iran’s currency has lost around half its value since Trump announced the US would withdraw from the nuclear pact. — AFP