Stores like Costco have been a favourite of Iranian diplomats as they are able to buy large quantities of products to send home.

The Trump administration has barred Iranian diplomats based in or visiting New York from shopping at wholesale club stores like Costco and purchasing luxury goods in the United States without specific permission from the State Department.

“We will not allow the Iranian regime to allow its clerical elites to have a shopping spree in New York while the Iranian people endure poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and dire shortages of water and electricity,” the department said in a statement.

In notices to be published this week in the Federal Register, the department’s Office of Foreign Missions determined that diplomatic memberships in wholesale club stores as w

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