17,000 trucks wait at Iran’s borders as cargo backs up
Hundreds of truck drivers have recently been waiting in long lines at the Pakistani border crossings, and the Union of Truckers and Drivers Associations Across Iran said Tuesday that some drivers had been forced to abandon spoiled cargoes of fruit and other agricultural produce. Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said the Pakistani closures have stranded more than 4,500 metric tons of bottled gas — one of Tehran’s last energy exports — on the Iranian side of the border.
The backups extend congestion that predates this week’s closures. As of Sept. 29, 17,000 trucks were waiting at Iran’s borders with Turkey, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan, with delays typically running to 20 days, Ehsan Malekzadeh, chairman of the Iranian International Transportation Companies Association, told the semiofficial Mehr news agency at the time. Transit points remain open elsewhere on Iran’s borders, but the closures are worsening congestion at a moment when land crossings already were struggling to make up for lost waterborne shipping capacity and stem the rising cost of basic goods for Iranian consumers.
Iraq shut the Sheeb border point on Wednesday, connecting the two countries’ biggest oil provinces. Baghdad cited the need to tighten enforcement against smuggling. Iranian officials have reported that the Shalamcheh crossing has also closed; Iraq has not confirmed the move. Over the weekend, Pakistan blocked trucks coming from Iran at two key border crossings, Gabd and Taftan, citing security considerations. Both have been used as road alternatives to Iran’s biggest eastern port. On Friday, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry indicated the moves were related to sanctions enforcement.
“Pakistan, as a responsible member of the international community, adheres to and shall continue to adhere to all applicable sanctions regimes in accordance with international and domestic laws,” the spokesman said when asked about the closures.
The closures deepen an isolation campaign the United States has been running for months. The U.S. Navy has blockaded Iranian ports in response to Tehran’s attacks on the Strait of Hormuz, bringing oil exports to zero and heavily disrupting imports of goods including food. The blockade exempts humanitarian goods, but many shippers are afraid to risk getting stopped. Iran’s oil stockpile beyond the blockade — which for months it could continue selling to buyers in China — is now tapped out. Under President Trump’s push to isolate Iran economically, the Treasury has also imposed new sanctions on banks transacting with Tehran and on Iran’s aviation sector, cutting off most connections with trade partners such as Iraq and Oman.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this month he was working with Pakistan and Turkey to cut off Iran’s land routes, telling the Newsmax Policy Summit that the U.S. is moving beyond financial sanctions to wage an “absolute isolation campaign” against Iran. A Treasury official said last month the department was looking at blacklisting entities that provide warehouses and distribution centers to shut down the movement of goods into Iran’s land borders. The Treasury didn’t return a request for comment. A Trump administration official said the U.S. economic campaign “is isolating the Iranian regime into desperation.”
The deepening isolation comes as President Trump is also ramping up military pressure in hopes of pressing Iran to make concessions on its nuclear program. Middle East mediators are scrambling to revive talks, but the diplomatic front has been stalled for months, with Iran refusing U.S. demands to discuss the nuclear issue.
Iranian business and parliamentary figures attributed the closures to U.S. pressure. Hamid Hosseini, a member of the board of directors of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce in Tehran, said in an interview he believes the closing of the Iraqi crossings was the result of the U.S. campaign to isolate Iran. Fadahossein Maleki, Iran’s head of the Iran-Pakistan parliamentary friendship group and a member of the parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, said Thursday: “We did not expect this from our Pakistani friends, and did not expect them to come under the influence of American pressure.” Peyman Sanandaji, head of the transportation commission of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, told the Mehr news agency that Iranian exports to Pakistan have been suspended because of banking sanctions, and that Islamabad was now asking Pakistani importers to register their banking details for Iran trades, a requirement he said was complicated by restrictions on Tehran’s financial system.
Miad Maleki, a former Treasury sanctions official, said the partial border closures had the potential to further destabilize Iran’s economy. “Maritime restrictions have already pushed trade onto very limited and costly overland routes, so it does make Iran’s remaining economic lifelines slower, more expensive and less reliable,” he said. “They worsen congestion, raise transport costs and delay raw materials and essential imports, squeezing production and, most importantly, tax revenue.”
Iran’s economy has been crippled by war and isolation. Iranian households have lost 90% of their purchasing power in the past year, the country’s statistical center said this month, and food prices had risen by 128%, with many families forced to buy meat on credit. On Thursday, the value of the Iranian rial fell to a new low at 2,740,000 for a dollar.