‘Economic asphyxiation’: US announces global sanctions against Iran, enforcing ‘zero-leakage approach’

The U.S. is launching Operation Economic Outcast, a global “economic onslaught” to isolate Iran, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent announced at a press briefing Monday.

The U.S. also expects cooperation from other countries, whose failure to do so could lead to sanctions.

“No nation should expect to enjoy the rewards of our system while helping those who seek to destroy it,” Bessent said. “It is now a time for world leaders to make a decision between prosperity and isolation, peace and terror, America and Iran. The campaign we begin today will gather force with every day that follows, and it will not end until this regime stands alone.”

Operation Economic Outcast targets Iran’s five “most vital lifelines”: digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping. Additionally, the Treasury department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is sanctioning more than 60 global entities, individuals and vessels that assist Iran in nuclear and missile technology production, cyber operations or generate oil revenue, Bessent said.

Any country “foolish enough to continue conducting business with this regime” will face additional U.S. sanctions and share in Iran’s impending isolation, Bessent said.

“Countries cannot claim they are blind to enabling this activity. Iran’s enablers purchase and transport its petroleum,” he said. “They facilitate the flow of its finances through exchange houses and free trade zones. They welcome Iran’s flights and maintain registries on its behalf. They turn a blind eye to seaborne fuel transfers and overland transits. They condone illicit use of their banks, all the while concealing the extent of their complicity.”

The U.S. has presented defined timelines to every country for ending economic support of Iran and its military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Treasury department has identified “every node, every facilitator, and every network that Iran has used to smuggle oil and evade sanctions” and will now “sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime,” Bessent said.

“We are enforcing a zero-leakage approach.”

Additionally, any country or entity that aids Iran in money laundering will “be removed from the U.S. dollar system,” Bessent threatened.

“We are going to hold everyone accountable, and this is economic asphyxiation of this regime,” Bessent said.

No country can be friendly with America while supporting a regime that advocates “death to America” and seeks nuclear weapons to fulfill that statement. America has lost more service members and civilian lives to Iran over the past 47 years of war than to any other terrorist regime, Bessent said.

“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.