The language used Monday by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as he announced a new raft of sanctions against Iran was apocalyptic. The measures are part of the Trump administration's plan to use economic pressure to force Iran to capitulate, to bring an end to the nearly six-month war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. is "no longer managing the Iranian threat, we are ending it," Bessent declared, with sanctions that he vowed would "sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone." Operation Economic Outcast will expand the categories for secondary sanctions against countries and entities that do business with Tehran and introduce new sanctions in sectors including technology, shipping and digital assets.
But Iran experts have not been convinced the new measures will have the kind of impact that would force the theocracy to accept defeat in a war President Trump predicted would last no more than six weeks, not months. For decades, various U.S. administrations have attempted to pressure Iran with sanctions. The regime has survived through a series of financial schemes and smuggling operations, according to the U.S.
"They know how to cope," Kate Dourian, a nonresident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told CBS News' partner network BBC News on Tuesday. "They have the workarounds. So, I think most of what Mr.
Bessent said was targeted at other countries, not Iran." In his announcement, Bessent said countries that maintain business relations with Iran should "expect to share in the isolation of a withering regime." Sixty entities deemed to be helping or trading with Iran were listed under the new sanctions on Tuesday, including in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, France, the U.K. and — crucially according to analysts — China. But the sanctions only target some private Chinese businesses, stopping short of the more consequential step of hitting the country's major financial institutions. Without that, analysts say Bessent's doomsday predictions for Iran will flop.
"This was not economic D-Day," Brett Erickson, a Washington-based sanctions expert who runs Obsidian Risk Advisors, told CBS News, using Mr. Trump's own language to describe the measures. "If the United States is unwilling to meaningfully target China, can Washington reasonably justify damaging our international relations and global standing, for a strategy with only a far-fetched likelihood of achieving victory?" Last week, the UAE, a U.S. ally, cut off all trade with Iran.
That, experts say, could have a meaningful impact on the regime. The Gulf country was the world's biggest importer of Iranian goods in 2024, according to the World Trade Organization, and around 80% of Iran's foreign currency exchange is done in Dubai, according to Miad Maliki, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who is also a former senior U.S. The "UAE is going to be very instrumental in cutting off the regime's access to procuring foreign currencies, but also getting access to its reserves — funds that it has generated from oil sales to China and are sitting in different banks," he told CBS News last week.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
