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WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the start of the “Operation Economic Outcast” campaign against Iran to “tighten the noose” around the regime and warned countries against doing business with Tehran.
The Trump admin aims to choke off revenue streams to the Iranian regime by pressuring secondary countries to stop doing oil, energy and business deals with Tehran.
“The clock just started ticking,” the secretary warned in a Monday news conference at the Treasury’s headquarters in DC — while declining to give a precise timeline before secondary sanctions would take effect.
Bessent revealed that President Trump has been burning the phone lines with world leaders with specific demands and stressed that America “does not have infinite patience” for those countries to comply.
“The president is making phone calls to world leaders with specific requests to cease their interactions with the regime. We are already seeing results,” Bessent said, without naming any specific countries.
Bessent’s issued a final warning to world leaders “to make a decision between … America and Iran.” The last call comes as Trump is preparing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping next month.
Beijing purchases roughly 90% of Iran’s oil.
“We want to make clear here today that no one is above the reach of US sanctions,” Bessent said when asked whether China would be subject to sanctions.
The United Arab Emirates already announced last week that it was stopping all trade and financial transactions with Iran.
Asked Monday, Bessent told a Post reporter those actions were “likely causal, and I would expect that we would see a broad array of countries taking similar action as we continue our engagement.”
“The UAE has been a very good partner,” the secretary said. “You will see a wave of sanctions when you leave this meeting today and you should expect that cadence to continue.”
Trump had called UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed hours before the announcement.
“And I would expect that you will see a major announcement of a financial institution being sanctioned by the end of this week,” added Bessent.
The new sanctions authorities will allow Bessent, “in consultation with the Department of State,” to target countries or entities dealing with Tehran through digital assets, technology, gold, commercial aviation and shipping.
Treasury officials noted that the Iranian regime has been making use of cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions, stabilizing its rial currency with gold to hedge against rising inflation, using commercial planes or ships to transport weapons or their components, fighters, cash and gold.
Those authorities took effect Monday pursuant to an executive order Trump signed in January 2020.
As the six-month-old war with Iran has dragged on, the Trump admin has teased an “Economic D-Day” approach.
As an example, Bessent warned that countries have been told to shutter Bank Melli branches within their borders, referring to the largest government-owned commercial bank in Iran.
That would include the bank’s branches in the UK, France, Germany and Russia, among other countries.
Bessent said the operation will “foreclose every other option available,” calling it a “zero leakage approach” that will ensure the regime will have “no minimal breathing space” to rebuild.
“Iran now faces a very clear choice, with only two paths before them: complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back to normalcy with an opportunity to rejoin the global economy,” he said.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters later Monday, “The only choice they have is to come to the table and actually talk about their nuclear program, which is what the president has demanded.”
In addition, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control on Monday sanctioned more than 60 entities that enable Iran to obtain illicit nuclear and missile technology, conduct malicious cyberattacks and increase the regime’s oil revenue through shadow fleets and other entities.
Some of the now-sanctioned entities, located in China and Iran, helped move “proliferation-sensitive equipment” and other “highly sensitive dual-use technology” to the Tehran-based Malek Ashtar University of Technology.
The university houses facilities that have helped develop Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missiles programs.
Other sanctioned entities have been involved in cyber espionage — including the leader of a group that hacked HBO’s computer system in the late 2010s and threatened to release unaired scripts of hit shows “Game of Thrones” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
And sanctioned members of the shadow fleet network had been operating in the UAE, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Switzerland and other European nations to help move Iranian oil.
Syrian national Mohammad Ahmed Suhil Fattouh, for example, had been a broker for shadow fleet vessels in the UAE on behalf of sanctioned groups like the IRGC-QF and the National Iranian Oil Company.
A Ukrainian national, Ivan Obukhov, had also processed more than $100 million in cryptocurrency payments while serving as a UAE-based broker for shadow fleet vessels transporting oil on behalf of Iran.
