US TREASURY SECRETARY Scott Bessent on Monday laid out plans for the \u201ceconomic asphyxiation\u201d of Iran, expanding Washington\u2019s secondary sanctions threats and warning of dire consequences for countries that do not join the campaign.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes almost six months into a war on Iran that has ground to a stalemate, with stalled peace talks and Tehran blocking most traffic through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Bessent earlier said the United States was declaring an \u201ceconomic D-Day\u201d on Iran, but his announcement named no specific countries beyond Iran and gave no timelines.<\/p>\n
\u201cAround the globe, our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone,\u201d Bessent told journalists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to hold everyone accountable, and this is economic asphyxiation of this regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that countries not joining US sanctions would \u201cshare in the isolation\u201d of Iran, and noted that President Donald Trump was making phone calls to world leaders with requests to stop interactions with Tehran.<\/p>\n
The Treasury Department said expanded secondary sanctions would target Iran\u2019s digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping sectors.<\/p>\n
It also issued new sanctions against 60 individuals, companies and vessels that allegedly aid Iran in oil revenue generation, weapons procurement and cyber operations.<\/p>\n
The sanctions hit entities around the world, including in the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and in Europe.<\/p>\n
Bessent vowed that any entity \u201cthat facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the US dollar system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran had been dismissive of the threat of additional sanctions, and on Monday its economy minister predicted \u201canother defeat\u201d for Washington on the economic front.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been waiting for these plans for a long time, and the government is and was ready and has a two-year plan to manage these events,\u201d said Ali Madanizadeh.<\/p>\n
In a post before the announcement, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said the latest US threats were an admission of military defeat.<\/p>\n
Gharibabadi asked why, if Washington had achieved its goals, \u201cthere is a need for \u2018the largest financial invasion in history\u2019 and the mobilisation of \u2018all institutions and powers\u2019 of the United States!<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this a victory or an admission of America\u2019s defeat?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Decades of sanctions<\/p>\n
Iran has weathered decades of crushing international sanctions, and before the war it continued to export millions of barrels of oil, mostly to China, and to evade sanctions through complex international financial networks.<\/p>\n
Asked on Monday if Chinese banks would be targeted by the new sanctions, Bessent said \u201cno one is above the reach of US sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US naval blockade of Iran has seen its oil exports via the Strait of Hormuz fall from two million barrels a day pre-war to just 0.4 million by mid-August, according to maritime tracker Kpler.<\/p>\n
For ordinary Iranians, the stand-off is likely to bring only more economic pain after years of rampant inflation, which in December and January fuelled massive anti-government protests.<\/p>\n
Sarah Hassanbeigi, a 32-year-old pharmacist in Tehran, said: \u201cI don\u2019t think people can really take this much longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US announcement on Monday also suspended sanctions exemptions for payments to and from Iran related to the US educational system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US TREASURY SECRETARY Scott Bessent on Monday laid out plans for the \u201ceconomic asphyxiation\u201d of Iran, expanding Washington\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,356,18,13,14,6,19,18929,17,11,12,15,16,5,9951,13485,2712,7,8,384],"class_list":["post-654904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-donald-trump","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-oil","tag-sanctions","tag-scott-bessent","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117153930282170702","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}