United States President Donald Trump has announced what he called the \u201cmost crushing economic operation\u201d against Iran, as Washington ramps up pressure on Tehran amid a deadlock in talks to end the war between the two countries.<\/p>\n
In a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump said Iran has \u201cfailed to take\u201d the opportunity to make a deal, and would face \u201ceconomic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale\u201d.<\/p>\n
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He also threatened sanctions against any country that does business with Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences,\u201d he wrote. \u201cOil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies \u2014 it all needs to stop NOW. You know who you are. This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is not the first time that Trump has threatened Iran with economic sanctions.<\/p>\n
His administration has waged an economic pressure campaign against Iran, under the banner of Operation Economic Fury, following the launch of the US-Israel war on the country in February.<\/p>\n
The US has already imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran\u2019s oil, shipping and financial sectors, seeking to cut off the revenue Tehran earns from energy exports. It has also imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports and targeted companies, brokers and tankers accused of helping Iran sell its oil abroad.<\/p>\n
\u2018Frustration\u2019<\/p>\n
There was no immediate response from Iranian officials, but state media dismissed Trump\u2019s announcement as nothing new.<\/p>\n
The IRIB state broadcaster said it followed \u201cthe failure of military aggression\u201d while the semi-official Tasnim news agency said the announcement was \u201cnot a new development\u201d. It said the US \u201chas been trying for years to block any financial and economic ties with Iran\u201d but that Tehran has \u201clearned how to circumvent these restrictions and has become very skilled at doing so\u201d.<\/p>\n
The semi-official Fars news agency also dismissed Trump\u2019s claims as \u201cdelusional\u201d, saying that the US had repeatedly voiced assertions of Iran\u2019s \u201cimminent collapse\u201d and military destruction without delivering concrete results.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said Trump\u2019s latest move showed \u201ca degree of frustration\u201d over the deadlock in the five month old conflict.<\/p>\n
Hanna said the first question was what economic pressures Trump could exert on Iran that are already not being exerted and said the announcement may look like \u201canother shouting threat\u201d to the Iranian officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut perhaps his target audience is an American public that continues to oppose this ongoing conflict,\u201d Hanna said. \u201cHe is now taking what he hopes will be seen in the public forum as a very strong stance, regardless of the fact that we do not have specific details on which to judge the possible efficacy of this particular move to strengthen economic action against Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n
The China challenge<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s announcement came hours after the United Arab Emirates, a critical trade partner for Iran, suspended all financial ties with the country, accusing it of launching two ballistic missiles towards its waters.<\/p>\n
Tehran denied the claim, calling it a \u201cfalse-flag operation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nader Habibi, a Middle East economics professor at Brandeis University, said he believed the US \u201cstrongly encouraged or induced\u201d the UAE to impose the trade embargo, noting conversations between the two sides in recent days including a phone call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Emirati National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Habibi said other Iranian trade partners that Trump could target include China, Iraq and Turkiye.<\/p>\n
In China\u2019s case, \u201che can target the financial institutions that provide services to independent teapot refineries\u201d that are \u201cthe last group still purchasing Iranian oil\u201d, he said. But, \u201cthe challenge is that the Chinese government has warned Chinese entities not to cooperate with US sanctions,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
Habibi added that it would also be difficult for the US to fully enforce restrictions on Iran\u2019s overland trade with Turkiye, Iraq and central Asia.<\/p>\n
Brett Erickson, managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisor, said the fact that the measures currently threatened by Trump had not already been used showed the risks involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they [the measures] offered a risk-reward profile that was favourable for the Trump administration, they would have already been implemented,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Erickson called punitive steps against Chinese banks that do business with Iran as \u201cfar and away the most consequential lever that Trump could pull\u201d. Such measures, \u201ccombined with real enforcement of the UAE\u2019s claim to be cutting off business with Iran\u201d could become \u201ctruly potent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But the biggest constraint to the US campaign \u201cremains time,\u201d Erickson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEconomic warfare on Iran not only needs to produce results, they need to produce said results in an expeditious manner,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States President Donald Trump has announced what he called the \u201cmost crushing economic operation\u201d against Iran, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,5575,12241,44,41,39,42,40,1055,6075,262188],"class_list":["post-861585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-us-israel-war-on-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}