Iranian civilians took to the streets Jan. 4 and have been protesting ever since to show their levels of discontent with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his corrupt leadership decisions that have raised the cost of living expenses and fuel. This marks the first protests in Iran since 2009 and the protests largely began in the rural, religious towns, and not with the urban elite.
Since then, President Trump has taken a great interest in the situation. He tweeted Sunday: “The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations,” seeming to imply his administration will intervene once he finds it necessary.
Recently, Trump has begun efforts to block a $20 billion sale of American-made Boeing jets to Iranian airlines.
As unusual as it may be for me, a conservative, to say, I find this to be not only a bad move for the United States, but for Trump himself, and it fails to aid the Iranian people in the manner the president intended.
Blocking the sale would negatively affect nearly 100,000 American jobs. Trump has dedicated so much of his presidency to creating jobs, but this move could get rid of these. His work with the economy has been excellent, but this would ultimately stall much of his progress.
Don’t get me wrong, this is an understandable move. Trump is making a point about a human rights violation, which is admirable and something about which he has been criticized in the past for ignoring. So, he seems to be adressing this criticism with his current actions. However, making moves that were against those of former President Obama's administration was not an effective way of doing this.
Likewise, the effects Trump believes this would have are not ones likely to occur. Many of the jets are not scheduled to be delivered until 2022, and by then the political climate in Iran could be incredibly different. As the street protests in recent days have shown, the Iranian government has less of a grip on power than originally thought.
If the president chooses to block this sale, then the Iranian government could buy these jets from foreign companies.
Last year China and Russia announced a joint venture to compete with Boeing. This would partner Commercial Aircraft Corp of China Ltd and Russia’s United Aircraft Corp, the state plane makers of China and Russia, respectively. So, Trump’s decline of a Boeing sale and U.S. jobs would be a win for China and Russia.
One thing nobody can deny Trump would be his consistency. He has been working to achieve everything he said he would during his campaign. But, this move would be the first instance in which I would want to question his consistency. He needs to continue to focus on U.S. jobs and only keep one eye on the Iranian government without hastily intervening.
