Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled a sweeping sanctions regime dubbed Operation Economic Outcast on Monday. The U.S. plan aims to sever Iran’s global economic lifelines, though Bessent declined to say which countries would be targeted or when new penalties on Iran’s trading partners would take effect.
The Trump administration has launched a high-stakes economic offensive against Iran, promising the toughest sanctions in history as war with the U.S. drags on. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent detailed the aggressive strategy during a press conference on Monday, announcing plans to choke off revenue sources supporting the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Operation Economic Outcast and the Target List of 60 Entities
Dubbed Operation Economic Outcast, the newly unveiled framework is designed to sever every economic lifeline
that sustains Iran and its 92 million residents. According to the Treasury Department, officials have already identified 60 entities and countries it’s prepared to impose secondary sanctions on soon if Iran doesn’t soften its positions in negotiations or if allied countries like China don’t comply. The strategy targets every node, every facilitator, every network that Iran maintains financially, including those used to evade the U.S.’s existing decades-long sanctions campaign. When President Donald Trump first announced the plan last week, Bessent said the U.S. is aiming to “collapse” the Iranian government.
A central pillar of the campaign involves the shuttering of every branch of the state-owned Bank Melli, Iran’s largest bank, which has operations in about a dozen countries, including the U.K. and France. Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone,
Bessent said during his Monday announcement. Beginning today, the actions of [the] Treasury and other agencies will tighten the noose and block every potential source of revenue that funds the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and the evil Iranian regime.
Global Market Turmoil and the Risk of International Clash
Ahead of the Treasury secretary’s Monday announcement, Iran’s currency fell to a record low. Analysts said the sanctions will likely roil global markets even further while doing little to alleviate the energy crisis created by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Bessent even acknowledged in his press conference that implementing the sanctions regime all at once would cause major global turmoil. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?
he said. Consequently, the administration is rolling out the penalties gradually over the coming weeks, leaving specific timelines and targeted trading partners unconfirmed by the treasury secretary.
Tehran Promises Retaliation and Rejects U.S. Demands
Iranian officials met the sanctions announcement with projected resolve. Throughout negotiations to end the war, Iran has remained firm on its positions — which include sanctions relief — in return for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s national security council, said that not a single drop of oil will be exported
from anywhere in the Persian Gulf if the U.S. broadens its economic campaign.
Iran will regard any country’s participation in or support for America’s economic war against the Iranian people as an act of war, Rezaei added
The U.S.’s threats also raise risks of escalating tensions with China, a major trading partner with Iran. If China defies the U.S.’s sweeping new rules, it could face the ire of the Trump administration — a major test of a relationship that would pit the world’s two largest economies against each other.
Humanitarian Toll on Civilians Amid Ongoing Conflict
Beyond the geopolitical standoff, scholars have long said that sanctions have a disproportionate effect on civilians. Research last year found that U.S. and EU sanctions killed 38 million people between 1971 and 2021, with the U.S.’s sanctions having the worst effects. Essential civilian needs are often impacted by these policies, with the U.S.’s sanctions on Iran having badly disrupted Iranians’ access to goods like medicine.
The National Iranian American Council wrote in a blog post that the Iranian economy was already suffering under the weight of nearly six months of war, noting that the value of the currency plummeted in anticipation of the announcement. The first effects of Washington’s new economic offensive are therefore reaching ordinary Iranians before the offensive itself has even been fully unveiled,
the group said.
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