The new campaign by US President Donald Trump against Iran is no longer confined to Tehran.
Washington is attempting to turn the economic isolation of the Islamic Republic into an international obligation, warning that states, businesses, banks, and trade networks continuing to cooperate with Iran could find themselves facing American sanctions.
The American President presented this new phase as «ECONOMIC D-DAY», promising the «harshest economic operation» ever implemented against any country.
He targeted oil smuggling, currency exchanges, money transfers, front companies, and shipping networks that enable Tehran to continue trading despite sanctions. Concurrently, he warned that third countries facilitating these activities will also face consequences.
Behind the belligerent rhetoric lies a very specific strategy: the US no longer merely wants to prevent American businesses from transacting with Iran. They want to compel the rest of the world to follow American policy as well.
And therein lies the true magnitude of the confrontation.
From sanctions to economic coercion
American sanctions against Iran are not a new phenomenon.
They began after the hostage crisis in 1979, and over the following decades expanded into petroleum, the banking system, investments, shipping, and a large portion of the Iranian economy.
In 1995, the Clinton administration imposed extensive restrictions on the petroleum sector, while following Donald Trump's withdrawal from the JCPOA agreement in 2018, the policy of «maximum pressure» returned.
The difference today is the scale.
The American government is not content with barring Iran from accessing its own financial system.
It utilizes the power of the dollar, access to American banks, and the size of the US market to impose a dilemma on third countries:
either you trade with Iran, or you maintain unrestricted access to the United States.
This is the real weapon of so-called secondary sanctions.
And from the perspective of Washington's critics, this represents a form of extraterritorial economic power: American laws effectively gain global application because no major bank or multinational corporation can easily risk exclusion from the dollar.
The real message - ultimatum is addressed to Beijing
The greatest test, however, is not Iran.
It is China.
For years, Beijing has been the most important destination for Iranian oil.
A report by the US Congress noted that since 2021 almost the entirety of Iranian crude exports ended up in China through complex commercial and maritime mechanisms.
At the same time, independent Chinese refineries, the well-known «teapots», have become a pivotal link in the system.
The Trump administration is examining even stricter sanctions against such companies and potentially banks processing transactions, aware however that such a move could trigger a direct economic clash with Beijing.
The timing is not accidental.
Xi Jinping is expected in the United States on September 24 for a meeting with Donald Trump.
Thus, «Economic D-Day» is simultaneously a message to Tehran and a warning to Beijing: Washington wants China to choose between its strategic relationship with Iran and the cost of a new confrontation with the US.
This, however, raises yet another question: by what right does Washington decide from whom China will buy petroleum?
The US can prohibit transactions within its own territory.
It can prohibit its own companies from buying Iranian crude.
It is very different, however, to threaten foreign enterprises because they conduct transactions between two third-party states.
The United Arab Emirates and the crucial role of Dubai
The second major front lies in the United Arab Emirates.
Dubai has for decades constituted one of the most important commercial, financial, and transit hubs for Iran.
The US Department of the Treasury has already identified dozens of front companies and currency exchanges in the United Arab Emirates that, according to Washington, assist Iranian enterprises and banks in circumventing sanctions.
The United Arab Emirates announced on August 18 the suspension of commercial and financial transactions with Iran, following allegations that Iranian missiles had headed toward their territory, a claim Tehran denied.
This development objectively serves the American strategy, but creates a serious dilemma for the Emirates.
To truly shut down Iran's network, authorities would have to scrutinize thousands of trading companies, accounts, exchange houses, maritime schemes, and beneficial owners.
The deeper this process goes, the greater the danger of damaging Dubai's very model as a free international trading hub.
Washington, in other words, is asking its allies to pay part of the economic cost of its own strategy.
A policy that has already failed to «strangle» Iran
The even larger problem for Donald Trump is that the previous application of «maximum pressure» failed to achieve its ultimate goal.
Indeed, after 2018 Iranian petroleum exports collapsed temporarily. But from 2021 they began to recover.
A study by the Stanford Iran 2040 Project concludes that by 2024 total petroleum and non-petroleum exports of Iran had exceeded levels recorded during the JCPOA implementation era, with the trend continuing into 2025.
The result was a peculiar form of economic guerrilla warfare.
Every time Washington identifies a company, another appears.
Every time a vessel is placed on a sanctions list, the cargo is transported via a new ownership structure.
Every time a financial route is closed, new intermediaries are created.
Even Reuters described the American tactic as an economic «whack-a-mole»: continuous chasing of networks that get replaced by others.
This does not mean that sanctions do not hurt Iran.
They hurt, and significantly.
The question is whom they hurt more.
Economic asphyxiation does not hurt only the government
Tehran faces a deep economic crisis.
In July, inflation had reached approximately 66%, while food prices were rising at an even faster pace.
The armed conflict, sanctions, and export restrictions have dramatically worsened the situation.
But these figures are not abstract.
They mean more expensive bread, medicine, transportation, and housing for millions of people.
The official American position is that exemptions exist for food, medicine, and humanitarian goods. However, in an economy cut off from banks, foreign currency, insurance firms, and international shipping, the distinction between «targeting the government» and «collapsing society's economy» often becomes theoretical.
That is why Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi characterized the new threats as «economic terrorism», accusing Donald Trump of attempting simultaneously to divert attention from internal problems within the US.
One can reject Tehran's rhetoric.
It is harder, however, to ignore that Washington now openly declares its objective is to inflict the maximum possible economic pressure.
And who profits from the crisis?
There is also an irony rarely found at the center of American rhetoric.
As the war and the deadlock in the Strait of Hormuz have restricted Asia's access to Middle Eastern crude, Asian refiners are turning increasingly to American crude. In July, US crude exports to Asia reached record levels, while American refiners benefit from international disruption and higher prices.
Washington thus appears as the architect of the sanctions, as a military factor in the crisis, and simultaneously as a supplier winning new markets from the disruption of legacy energy routes.
This does not mean the war was designed for the US to sell more oil.
It means, however, that economic reality is far more complex than the moral narrative of the White House.
«Economic D-Day» may ultimately hit American power itself
Washington possesses a formidable weapon: the global financial system remains dependent to a massive degree on the dollar and American banks.
Precisely because this weapon is so powerful, however, its overuse creates incentives for other major powers to seek alternatives.
China has every reason to develop payment and trade mechanisms that reduce its exposure to American sanctions.
The same applies to any country that sees that a political disagreement with Washington can at any moment turn into exclusion from the international financial system.
And here lies the biggest strategic risk of Trump's policy.
The US can weaponize the use of the dollar.
They cannot, however, demand at the same time that the rest of the world forget that it is a weapon.
«Economic D-Day» may severely wound Tehran.
It may complicate Iranian commerce, cut off companies, and increase export costs.
But Washington's real ambition is much larger: to decide not only with whom Americans do business, but also with whom the rest of the world is permitted to do business.
And the more the US uses its economic supremacy as a means of coercing third countries, the more it turns a campaign against Iran into something far broader:
into a battle over whether American economic legislation can function as global law.
This is not merely «maximum pressure».
It is a claim of economic sovereignty over states that never voted in the US Congress.
www.bankingnews.gr
Σχόλια αναγνωστών