Today, Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer, Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen regarding Iran’s use of ‘Special Drawing Rights’ (SDR) to access capital. The Congressman urges Sec. Yellen to instruct the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) membership that any efforts to transact in Iranian SDRs will be subject to U.S. sanctions.

Read the full letter HERE. 

“We must not allow Iran to take handouts from the IMF only to turn around and fund acts of terrorism against our allies. This is a logical and necessary first step to supporting Israel and preventing future attacks,” Congressman Luetkemeyer said.

In addition to SDRs, China is principally responsible for supporting the Iranian regime through oil purchases, despite sanctions that were reimposed in 2019 to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero. Experts also suggest China is complicit in funneling weapons to Hamas and allowing the transport of North Korean weapons to the terror group.

Cutting Iran out of the picture blocks financial support to Hamas and should expose other malicious actors supporting the antisemitic atrocities. 

Background: SDRs refer to an international reserve asset based on a basket of five currencies—the U.S. dollar, the euro, the Chinese renminbi, the Japanese yen, and the British pound sterling. Iran holds approximately $6.5 billion worth of SDRs at the IMF. While the U.S. has sanctions in place to prevent Iran from converting SDRs to hard currency, Rep. Luetkemeyer and many of his colleagues in Congress have serious concerns that neither the IMF nor the Biden administration will take the steps necessary to ensure this does not take place.