| In what court? There was no signed and ratified treaty, merely a personal agreement between two heads of state, one of whom no longer has official standing, |
"Hand-made carpets belong to the land of the Medes and the Persians and US President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
has made a mistake to sanction this Iranian art which is a symbol of culture and intellectual property of the Iranian people," Fereshteh Dastpak told the Islamic Theocratic
RepublicNews Agency (IRNA).
Handmade carpets are one of Iran’s most iconic industries. Thousands of skilled weavers rely on the carpet industry to earn a living.
Last month the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) cancelled the license for importing rugs, pistachios, and caviar from Iran as part of Washington’s efforts to squeeze the Iranian economy.
According to the Iranian National Carpet Center, carpet exports generated $336 million between March 2017 and January 2018. A third of these exports went to the US. Iran exported more than $97 million worth of handmade carpets to the US last year alone.
In May this year, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, announcing a raft of new sanctions to be imposed on Iran in the coming months. Under the sanctions regime imposed on Iran prior to the 2015 deal, Iranian carpet exports to the US fell to zero.
Iran is the biggest carpet exporter in the world, selling to 80 countries. In the US, Persian rugs are sold for between $10,000 for a smaller rug and $100,000 or even twice as much for a fine, large rug, according to the Iran National Carpet Center.