NEW: Iran’s Currency Craters To Record Low As Regime Descends Further Into Economic Ruin

Iran’s currency plunged to a record low Tuesday as U.S. sanctions and a naval blockade squeezed the country’s battered economy, a day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Tehran was headed toward an economic “cataclysm.”

Traders in Tehran were exchanging more than 2.5 million rials for a single U.S. dollar. The previous record, 2.2 million rials to the dollar, was set Sept. 2, just 27 days earlier.

The rial has hit one low after another since the war began in February. Iran entered the conflict with an economy already weakened by years of international sanctions. Additional sanctions and a U.S. blockade targeting its oil trade have piled on the pressure.

President Donald Trump and his top aides argue that Tehran cannot afford to keep fighting much longer. Administration officials say cutting off oil revenue is working, restricting the Iranian government’s access to oil revenue.

Rubio made that case during a Monday appearance on Fox News.

“And so when you’re denying them money through oil sales and sanctions, you’re not just punishing them,” Rubio said. “You are preventing them from getting access to money that they will use to try and kill Americans and others around the world and their own people and build weapons and threaten the world and ultimately break out to a nuclear weapon program.”

Tehran, meanwhile, is pursuing indirect talks with Washington over the Strait of Hormuz while publicly demanding that Washington acknowledge defeat and leave the region.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian media late Monday that negotiations had become “more serious” and that the “current focus is solely on the Strait of Hormuz,” the critical shipping passage at the center of the conflict.

His remarks came before he left New York, where he attended last week’s U.N. General Assembly gathering and met with Pakistani and Qatari mediators.

POLL: Should Trump Cut Off Aid To Countries That Side With Iran Over America?

Araghchi said Qatar’s representatives were expected to approach U.S. officials again before relaying Washington’s position to Tehran.

“They are set to raise the matter with the American side once more, after which the final U.S. response will be conveyed to us,” Araghchi said. “If there is a response, the Qataris will convey it to us and a decision will be made in Tehran on that basis.”

U.S. officials and others have confirmed to The Associated Press that intermediaries are trying to secure an agreement to stop the fighting and reopen the strait.

Trump earlier this week rejected an Iranian offer to reopen the passage within seven days. Tehran’s conditions included lifting the blockade of Iranian ports, freeing frozen Iranian assets and waiving sanctions on its oil sales.

As those diplomatic efforts continued, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard appealed directly to Americans to protest the war and pressure their government to end it.

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Gen. Hossein Mohebbi, the Guard’s chief spokesman, read a letter at a Tuesday news conference in Tehran claiming Washington would have to accept defeat and withdraw from the Middle East.

He accused the United States of invoking Iran’s nuclear program as a pretext to “plunder Iran’s wealth” and turn the country “back into a colony.”

Mohebbi also claimed military and economic pressure had failed to force Tehran into submission, declaring that Washington “has no choice but to acknowledge defeat and leave the region.”

“This is how the war will end,” he said.

The appeal landed weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, with Republicans fighting to retain control of Congress. Polling indicates the war has soured voters’ mood, while higher gasoline prices tied to the conflict have become an election issue.

Trump initially predicted the fighting would last only weeks. More recently, he has said the war will likely end after the November elections, even as his administration maintains that Iran’s worsening financial crisis will force Tehran to capitulate.

POLL: Should Trump Cut Off Aid To Countries That Side With Iran Over America?