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The Trump administration launched its \u201cEconomic Fury\u201d campaign to hobble Iran\u2019s economy with sanctions more than a month ago. So far, the country is unbowed.<\/p>\n
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent exhorted allies earlier this week to join the US in its economic pressure campaign, which the administration rolled out shortly after it entered into a ceasefire that halted its military campaign against Iran, dubbed \u201cEpic Fury.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new campaign appeared to be an update of \u201cMaximum Pressure,\u201d the tag line dating from Trump\u2019s first term that described his approach of suffocating the Iranian economy. The new campaign that started April 16 promised to leverage \u201cthe full range of available tools and authorities\u201d to choke off Iran.<\/p>\n
So far, though, the actions largely resembled the previous strategy, and with the same effect: Iran has broadly held out against US demands despite facing a steadily growing arsenal of sanctions dating back to 2018, when President Donald Trump backed out of a nuclear deal forged during the Obama era.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s brought the total number of sanctions against Iran imposed in the last eight years to nearly 2,000, according to Jeremy Paner, a partner at Hughes Hubbard & Reed, who tracks designations on Iran\u2019s oil and petrochemical sectors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere really hasn\u2019t been any significant shift in the targeting priorities,\u201d Paner said. \u201cThe authorities are the same. The geographies being targeted are the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US effort has targeted everything from oil companies and shipping firms to currency exchanges and intermediaries across China and the Middle East.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But all of those measures \u2014 even with an extensive bombing campaign alongside Israel and an ongoing US Navy blockade \u2014 have only underscored Iran\u2019s ability to weather US pressure, especially given continued oil sales to China.<\/p>\n
The administration\u2019s challenge with Iran is one that\u2019s bedeviled successive administrations: squeezing Iran\u2019s economy enough to force change while avoiding excessive harm to the global economy and American consumers\u2019 pocketbooks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just reached the limit of what we can achieve with sanctions and economic pressure,\u201d said Richard Nephew, a former State Department official who served as the deputy envoy for Iran and a coordinator for sanctions policy. \u201cWe need to either overwhelm them with something new \u2014 and this Economic Fury stuff isn\u2019t it \u2014 or we need to start limiting our ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Treasury spokesperson didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also the matter of timing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump wants a quick end to a war that has closed the vital Strait of Hormuz and caused global energy prices to soar. On Saturday, Iran said talks on a peace deal was progressing with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio also signaling a resolution was in sight.<\/p>\n
Read More:\u00a0Iran, US Signal Progress in Peace Talks as Key Issues Unresolved<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s battered leadership has been hunkered down over what they see as an existential crisis. It doesn\u2019t help that any deal with the US would likely involve loosening the sanctions that Treasury continues to slap onto the regime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not really a lot of incentive for them to capitulate when they know that the shackles come off in a couple weeks,\u201d says Brett Erickson, a managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors. \u201cA fully unified Western sanctions front would absolutely tighten the screws on Tehran over the long term. But the global economy does not have the luxury of an extended timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n
The resilience of Iran, despite the range of levies against it, echoes the persistence shown by other heavily sanctioned US geopolitical foes, including Russia and North Korea.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This so-called\u00a0axis of the sanctioned\u00a0have ended up exporting weapons and munitions to each other in the face of US measures \u2014 a network that has seen Russia using Iranian drones and North Korean shells against Ukrainians, and Iran getting targeting information from Russia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s escalation to a full naval blockade against Iran \u2014 an act of war under international law \u2014 is just a further sign that the Islamic Republic has been able to withstand sanctions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a very large kind of shadow economy that has been directly created by sanctions,\u201d economic statecraft expert Nicholas Mulder said. \u201cThe blockade \u2014 and the war of which the blockade in a sense forms a part \u2014 is an admission that these sanctions that the US has been using for decades have not achieved this goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the same time, the administration\u2019s appetite for sanctioning China, which has long been the single largest buyer of Iranian oil, has been limited, according to Chris Kennedy, economic statecraft lead at Bloomberg Economics and a former State Department official.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The US has sanctioned Chinese entities linked to the Iranian oil trade in recent weeks, including one of China\u2019s largest private\u00a0oil refiners\u00a0and exchanges that helped convert oil sales made with Chinese yuan into other legal tender.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But after meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Trump suggested he was\u00a0weighing\u00a0whether to ease sanctions on Chinese oil companies buying from Iran. The president later said he would only relax sanctions after a deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is spaghetti at the wall at this point,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cThey\u2019re constrained by the China relationship, and it seems like they\u2019re hoping that economic pressure is going to force a capitulation. Our assessment is that\u2019s pretty unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n
#U.S #reaches #limit #sanctions #power #targeting #Irans #economy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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