How much could Trump’s ‘economic D-Day’ sanctions hurt Iran? – BBC News
BBC Homepage
Skip to content
Accessibility Help
Your account
Home
News
Sport
Earth
Reel
Worklife
Travel
Culture
Future
Music
TV
Weather
Sounds
More menu
More menu
Search BBC
Home
News
Sport
Earth
Reel
Worklife
Travel
Culture
Future
Music
TV
Weather
Sounds
BBC News
Menu
Home
Climate
World
UK
Business
Tech
Science
Entertainment & Arts
Health
In Pictures
More
BBC Verify
Newsbeat
World
Africa
Asia
Australia
Europe
Latin America
Middle East
US & Canada
How much could Trump’s ‘economic D-Day’ hurt Iran?
Image source: EPA
By Bernd Debusmann Jr, White House reporter
Published 2 hours ago
Nearly six months after US President Donald Trump vowed a swift victory over Iran, the conflict appears to be at a standstill, with prospects of a military victory or negotiated settlement growing dimmer.
To break the deadlock, Trump has vowed an "economic D-Day" under which any country that does business with Iran would face "tremendous" economic consequences.
Iran, however, has long faced sanctions and has so far shown a willingness to endure pain and a capacity to adapt to immense economic and military pressure as the conflict drags on.
The key question for the US then becomes: will further sanctions work where other strategies have failed?
The exact mechanics of the new US economic pressure campaign remain unclear, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promising to reveal them in a news conference on 24 August. But in an interview with CNBC, Bessent made clear that the US is willing to take action against any country – friend or foe – that it believes is extending a lifeline to Iran.
"You are either with us or against us," he said. “If you insist on doing business with [Iran], either transferring money, buying their oil or doing seaborne sea transfers, then the US treasury and the US government… will put its full might and force toward enforcing against you."
Vice-President JD Vance has described the sanctions as a "new phase" of the conflict in which economic pressure is the "most effective" tool available to the US.
"They’re going to try to apply economic pressure to us, but what has been true over the last couple of weeks is that they felt a lot more pressure than we have," Vance said on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show. "We’re going to keep that going because we think that’s the best way to ultimately achieve the final objective."
Iran has faced significant US sanctions since nearly the beginning of the Islamic Republic in 1979. The economic pressure campaign intensified after the first Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 pact between world powers and Iran to curb its nuclear programme.
And in the current conflict, the US government has already announced Operation Economic Fury, a two-pronged US economic campaign combining US treasury-co-ordinated sanctions against regime financial flows and a naval blockade against Iranian ports.
Imran Bayoumi, a geostrategy expert with the Atlantic Council in Washington DC and former policy adviser to the defence department, told the BBC the latest announcement was likely the result of mounting frustration that other options have not delivered the results Trump wants.
"This is really a recognition that the US is almost stuck in this war," he said. "It’s another try at economic pressure."
"This is just another tool that the US is using," Bayoumi added. "We’ve not seen a clear strategy laid out by the administration with either military or economic tools. The question of what the US is trying to achieve is still unanswered."
Michael Parker, an eight-year veteran of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and expert on economic sanctions, said the new strategy will likely represent an effort to "expand the economic blast radius" of sanctions by targeting third countries that still deal with Iran, but have economies that depend on the US dollar.
