The Trump administration officially banned Iranian officials in New York from visiting wholesale shopping outlets like Costco, Sam’s Club or BJ’s Wholesale Club this week, marking an unusual act of pressure on diplomats during annual high-level meetings at the United Nations.
In a notice to the Federal Register published on Tuesday, the administration ordered that Iranian officials who worked at the New York-based mission to the U.N. and officials who travel for U.N.-related work would be barred from having membership of the wholesale outlets or otherwise purchasing from the outlets.
The notice also said that Iranian officials would have to obtain permission from the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions if they wanted to buy luxury goods while in the United States.
“We will not allow the Iranian regime to allow its clerical elites to have a shopping spree in the United States while they force their own people in Iran to endure poverty and dire shortages of basic needs,” State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement posted to X.
In a separate notice to the Federal Register, luxury goods were defined as goods worth over $1,000 dollars, and it included a long list of examples including wristwatches, leather goods, perfumes and fountain pens. Vehicles worth over $60,000 were also classified as luxury.
The Iranian Mission to the United Nations declined to comment. There are several wholesale shopping outlets in New York City and the surrounding areas, including a Queens-based outlet of Costco that is less than five miles by road.
As host to the U.N., the U.S. allows multiple countries with which it does not have formal diplomatic relations to maintain missions and travel to New York City.
However, these nations, as well as some others, face restrictions on their travel within the United States. Diplomats from Belarus, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria and Venezuela are all required to inform the State Department if they travel further than 25 miles from Columbus Circle in Manhattan or 25 miles of the White House if they have representation in Washington.
The Trump administration said last month it would be denying or revoking visas for members of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization ahead of the U.N. General Assembly, but said it would grant waivers to the Palestinian Authority’s Mission to the United Nations.
The restrictions meant that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appeared via video-link to a France and Saudi Arabia-backed conference on Palestinian statehood on Monday.