NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly six months into the war against Iran and facing a decline in its key weapons stockpile, the Trump administration is touting a crushing financial campaign against Tehran, promising an “economic D-Day” against a country that has withstood nearly five decades of tough U.S. sanctions. With few details, President Donald Trump announced this week that the United States would impose an “unprecedented” level of economic warfare and isolation on Iran, aiming to force its leadership to bow to demands that it end its nuclear program and fully reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz to oil and natural gas tankers. It reflects the terrible reality that Trump faces with an increasingly unpopular war that he cannot seem to end just months before the crucial midterm elections that will decide whether his Republican Party maintains control of Congress. Whether out of desperation or strategy, the president is reorienting American power to bring Iran to its knees through an accelerated sanctions campaign against one of the world’s most economically battered countries. In response to the threat, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday posted the story of US sanctions against Iran on X, saying: “We’ve seen this movie before. Same bull. Different bullies.” In an interview Thursday on CNBC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a small glimpse of what could happen in the future, threatening secondary sanctions on nations and companies that do business with Iran. He did not reveal who would be targeted in the next phase of the administration’s Operation Economic Fury, which had previously focused on entities and individuals that buy oil or bank with Iran. China and India, however, are the main buyers of Iranian oil. “If you insist on doing business with them, then the Treasury and the United States government will turn all their power and force against you,” Bessent said. “It is time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision.” Some experts see ‘uncharted waters’ that could force Iran to act. Despite decades of US sanctions against Iran, the Trump administration argues that it is only a matter of time and that attacking the right economic target would push Tehran to its breaking point. Richard Goldberg, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran during Trump’s first term, said the fallout from the U.S. attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites last year, this year’s war and the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports have created the perfect storm for capitulation, a storm that did not exist previously. This is our AP Ground Game newsletter. You can sign up below and we’ll email you 3 times a week. Sign up for the Ground Game newsletter: your guide to the biggest stories in American politics, policy and elections. “I think we’re looking at a strategy, whether it takes a short time or a long time, that has a lot to do with fundamentally changing the future of the world as we see the end of this regime,” said Goldberg, who now works at the hardline Washington think tank, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, or FDD. “I warn everyone – including myself, who has worked on sanctions, who has worked on financial warfare – to have the humility to admit that we are in uncharted waters,” he said. He said this week’s decision by the United Arab Emirates – once one of Tehran’s most important trading partners – to suspend trade with Iran over an alleged missile attack will only further isolate the government. Beyond trading in locally produced goods, the Emiratis had helped the country absorb some of the impacts caused by sanctions through its re-export centre. Targeting allies and partners comes at a price. With nearly all of Iran’s energy, financial and transportation sectors already covered by US sanctions, Trump’s goal appears to be to apply secondary sanctions to countries, including allies and partners, that have not cut all ties with Iran to deprive the country of any remaining revenue it may still be receiving. It is a reduction of Trump’s maximum pressure campaign in his first term, which he has intensified during his second term to include military action. But, as Trump and his allies discovered during his first administration, it can be difficult to apply secondary sanctions without harming American interests and provoking reciprocal action. There were numerous cases in which the administration granted sanctions waivers to countries, particularly those that depend on Iranian oil for their energy needs. “Trump’s strategy now is based on directly targeting Tehran by preventing its contact points and its access to the formal financial system and the international economy,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the FDD’s Iran program. “This will require making the Iran issue more prominent in the United States’ bilateral relations with countries in Europe and Asia.” Iran does not see an ‘open door’ at the end of the sanctions campaign. Iranian officials and analysts have accused the Republican president of changing course in his latest turn toward economic pressure against Tehran. Trump has long mocked past leaders who used sanctions to limit Iran’s ability to pay for its military and nuclear development. In a post last week on “Iran has demonstrated for decades that it will not allow itself to be strangled by these tired refrains,” he said. “The real risk is that American politicians, by clinging to this bad habit, strangle their remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making.” Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, said the Trump administration’s decision to take its own maximum pressure policy to new heights with military action appears to ignore years of U.S. foreign policy lessons showing that Iran does not respond well to pressure. If anything, he says, the latest economic campaign has only “hardened Iran’s position.” “I think (Trump’s) blind spot is the fact that the only thing the Iranian regime considers more dangerous than suffering from American sanctions is surrendering to American terms,” Vaez said. Furthermore, the last year of end-to-end diplomacy has only worsened the already fragile dynamic between the former adversaries, Vaez says, adding that Iranian officials’ lack of trust in Trump and his mediators has created an unsustainable foundation. “They believe that even if they capitulate to US terms under economic pressure, Trump would change goals and ask for more,” he said. “And this is really the fundamental problem: pressure without an open door is an exercise in futility.” ___ Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.
