TEHRAN – Iran’s central bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati said that sanctions are a tool of pressure, not a means of determining Iran’s fate, describing what the U.S. has done so far as an attempt to inflame expectations and cause temporary market effects.
Hemmati said that alongside creating some income and trade restrictions, what the United States has done so far has been an effort to intensify expectations and exert temporary influence on market conditions.
“Economic pressure is not a policy but a miscalculation, and it increases the American calculations’ cost,” Hemmati said. 
Responding to Trump’s promise of Republican victory in congressional elections, Hemmati said the pledge to pay $5,000 to every American if Republicans win the midterms is part of that same miscalculation cost.