The latest Treasury action to squeeze the regime in Tehran travels via a financial institution located within a NATO ally and exposes the China problem inside Washington\u2019s attempt to cut off Iranian oil money.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Treasury sanctioned a Turkey-based bank on Friday over alleged Iranian financial flows, reaching into an allied nation while leaving the harder target\u2014Chinese demand for Iranian oil\u2014outside the day\u2019s enforcement action.<\/p>\n
Treasury said OFAC designated Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi Anonim Sirketi and two subsidiaries, saying the bank facilitated tens of millions of dollars in transactions for the IRGC-QF and gave Iran correspondent-banking access.<\/p>\n
Read More on Analysis<\/p>\n
The department also said Golden Global was established to transfer Iranian oil revenues from China to Turkey, where money exchangers could convert them into cash and gold.<\/p>\n
Middlemen Take the Hit<\/p>\n
Bessent framed the action as part of Operation Economic Outcast, an August 24 campaign he said would \u201cblock every potential source of revenue\u201d for Iran.<\/p>\n
On Friday, he said financial institutions would \u201cfind out the hard way\u201d that Washington was serious.<\/p>\n
The target was Turkey-based, a sensitive choice because of Ankara’s membership in NATO and President Donald Trump’s own warm relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan.<\/p>\n
Yet Treasury\u2019s account of the violation points well beyond Turkey and much further east: the money entered the network as oil revenue from China.<\/p>\n
The timing suggests one reason Beijing may have dodged Bessent\u2019s economic bullet. <\/p>\n
Xi\u2019s Washington Visit Narrows the Room<\/p>\n
The White House said in May that Trump would welcome Xi Jinping in Washington this fall, reciprocating his own visit to Beijing. Xi is expected in late September.<\/p>\n
Reuters reported Friday, citing two unnamed sources, that Xi was preparing an unusually large business delegation for the September 24 summit, adding a commercial test to the diplomatic one.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration had already sanctioned China- and Hong Kong-linked intermediaries, shipping companies and independent \u201cteapot\u201d refineries, but had stopped short of targeting a major Chinese bank.<\/p>\n
Bessent has rejected the idea that Washington was reluctant to confront China as a \u201ccompletely false narrative”.<\/p>\n
But hitting China would come at an economic cost that the Trump administration is perhaps not willing to induce, at least not right now.<\/p>\n
Targeting a major Chinese bank before Xi’s visit could trigger retaliation and complicate the summit.<\/p>\n
Bessent denies Washington is reluctant to confront China, although his own rhetorical question\u2014\u201cWhy would I want to blow up the global financial system?\u201d\u2014captures the risk.<\/p>\n
The U.S. has arrived at a fragile truce with China in a trade war that spread volatility across the financial markets and caused severe pain for importers and exporters on both sides of the Pacific. <\/p>\n
Xi’s visit is intended to firm up that truce and move the relationship into a new phase, an effort that Iran sanctions would disrupt, perhaps fatally. <\/p>\n
China\u2019s Objection<\/p>\n
China\u2019s Foreign Ministry said August 25 that \u201ceconomic warfare and maximum pressure provide no solution\u201d and said China\u2019s cooperation with Iran should not be disrupted.<\/p>\n
It is a stance that leaves Washington with two paths forward: move from intermediary banks toward major Chinese financial institutions, or keep pressuring the networks around Iranian oil before Xi arrives.<\/p>\n
If Treasury names a major Chinese bank before the planned summit, the Iran campaign will become a direct test of the U.S.-China thaw.<\/p>\n
But if it keeps naming smaller conduits, the campaign may tighten Tehran\u2019s financing without forcing the confrontation Bessent insists Washington is not ducking. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest Treasury action to squeeze the regime in Tehran travels via a financial institution located within a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[80,191,57,3576,156,304,1783,4296,4391,4370],"class_list":["post-13106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-for-members","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-sanctions","tag-scott-bessent","tag-treasury","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}