September 15, 2023
President Raisi made state visits in June to Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua the only countries in the Western Hemisphere that the United States sanctions. The four-day trip was clearly part of Raisi’s effort to create a kind of alliance among regimes sanctioned by the United States.
The trip did not appear to produce much more than anti-American rhetoric, however. The trip did produce 35 signed documents between Iran and the three countries. But Iran famously likes to sign hordes of documents with foreign governments, while acting on few of them. It has been almost two decades since it signed a raft of memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with post-Saddam Iraq, and it is still talking about most of them.
Raisi seems aware of such inactivity. On his return from his trip to Latin America, he directed his cabinet ministers to act expeditiously on the signed documents.
Much of the talk on the trip was about Iran boosting trade with the three buddies, which have not shown much interest in trade. In the Persian year that ended at Now Ruz, Iran said it imported a measly $11.5 million worth of goods from Cuba but did not announce any sales to Cuba whatsoever. Iran bought merely $816,000 worth of goods from Venezuela, though it sold that country $118 million worth of non-oil products. With Nicaragua, Iran acknowledged it had no trade at all last year.
But Raisi spoke in Venezuela of boosting total non-oil trade to $20 billion a year, which would be 168 times more trade than now a dreamy number, although it should be noted Raisi didn’t say when he expected that number to be achieved.
One of the agreements signed with Venezuela called for Iran’s second largest carmaker, Saipa, to send 200,000 cars to Venezuela over the next five years. Iran described that agreement as an MOU, not a contract. MOUs are a list of goals or wannabes, not a firm obligation. Another MOU provided for Iran and Venezuela to resume production of Iranian cars in Venezuela at the Venezuelan-Iranian Automotive Co, which has been shuttered since 2015. Saipa also said it would work to revive another factory partly owned by Iran that produced tractors and has been inactive for nine years.
A common theme in Raisi’s speeches in all three countries was the creation of a “new world order” to end US “domination” and promote cooperation among independent meaning sanctioned countries in order to thwart US sanctions.
But the three countries did not appear attracted to Iran’s blandishments to organize an anti-American front. For example, in Cuba, President Miguel Diaz-Canal told Raisi in a speech, “This visit reinforced our conviction that we have in Iran a friendly nation in the Middle East with which to confide … and talk about the most complex global issues.”
Perhaps the most concrete result of the trip was the announcement by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that his country will soon place a bust of the late Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleymani in the Caracas mausoleum housing the remains of national independence hero Simon Bolivar.