The United States will launch all-out “economic warfare” against Iran, President Donald Trump announced on August 19.
He announced that foreign countries that allow their financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities “to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences.”
Trump gave several examples of conduct that the United States would penalise, including “oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, [and] front companies.”
The president didn’t name any offenders, but said that such nations “know who you are.”
“This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Trump repeated past claims that the critical capacities of the U.S. adversary had been entirely diminished.
“Their navy is gone, their air force is destroyed, their military factories are now rubble, their currency is worthless, and their country is hanging by a thread,” Trump wrote.
The president vowed that Iran would never have a nuclear weapon. He has said that the extensive US military operations in the region over the past several months were mainly to end the terrorism-backing regime’s nuclear programme.
The new approach to the Iran War comes as diplomacy has continually fallen through amid allegations of treaty violations on both sides.
Maximum pressure The move to apply fresh economic pressure to Iran has been openly discussed by the administration for some time, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent telling Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight” on August 20 that Trump had ordered the US Treasury to “apply maximum pressure to the Iranian regime.”
