Iran has threatened to strike American businesses if Donald Trump launches his promised “economic D-Day” campaign to pressure Tehran into accepting a deal to end the war.
Mohsen Rezai, the head of Iran’s national security council, also warned American allies that they would be considered “enemies” and their interests would be “harmed” if they joined the US president’s financial warfare.
Mr Rezai insisted that the Islamic Republic had additional leverage in the war, claiming that “we have not yet attacked any American economic interests”.
He told Iranian state media on Saturday: “So far, we have only targeted military bases, but if they want to impose economic sanctions on us, the United States has oil and economic companies around Iran and elsewhere, and we will strike them.”
If Mr Trump followed through with his plans, “our confrontation will be like an earthquake”, Mr Rezai added.
Multiple Iranian newspapers displayed unfavourable depictions of Donald Trump on Saturday – Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/Shutterstock
The revenge warning is believed to be the first time in months that Tehran has threatened to hit American and Western businesses, and the only time it has explicitly mentioned their oil companies.
The Telegraph revealed on Saturday that hackers linked to the Iranian regime had shut down a UK power plant for four days in a cyberattack.
Iran’s threat against US allies, most of whom have not backed Mr Trump’s war, echoed his own warning on Wednesday that countries providing “any kind of lifeline” to Tehran would face “tremendous economic consequences”.
In a post on his Truth Social account, Mr Trump announced “the most crushing economic operation ever” against Tehran, and called on allied countries to “stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat”.
The Telegraph reported last week that Mr Trump had decided to pivot to squeezing Iran’s economy after speaking with Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary. Mr Bessent said he will announce “the toughest sanctions in history” against Tehran on Monday.
It also remained unclear which US-linked sites in the Middle East that Iran would target if it did launch attacks on companies, but Americans have invested in and expanded businesses substantially in the Gulf in recent years, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran launched drone attacks on a handful of Amazon data centres in Bahrain and the UAE and threatened further strikes against tech companies just after the war began in February. It has otherwise avoided American targets beyond military and diplomatic facilities.
Military action against American oil companies in the Middle East would probably worry Mr Trump, who has seen his approval ratings sink amid rising petrol prices caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The US president has repeatedly claimed that the strait would become a US territory once the war ended. On Saturday night, he posted a photo to his Truth Social account with the waterway circled, underneath the caption: “new US territory.”
On Saturday night, Donald Trump posted a map of the Strait of Hormuz labelled as US territory – Truth Social
Iran has previously struck numerous facilities belonging to Gulf state energy companies, including the Ras Laffan LNG hub in Qatar and Aramco plants in Saudi Arabia.
Earlier on Saturday, Ebrahim Rezaei, the spokesman for Iran’s national security commission, warned Gulf states hosting American aircraft and fuel tankers that they “shouldn’t complain later” if they are targeted, including with strikes on civilian infrastructure.
Reuters also reported on Aug 5 that Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, had urged Gulf states to counsel Mr Trump against military action and threatened retaliation on their critical energy infrastructure.
Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president who has advocated making a deal to end the war, claimed on Saturday that the world had “already accepted” Tehran’s victory and that the US was “hated”.