The Iranian official calls Trump’s economic repression a “return to classical colonialism on a grand scale.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei called the Trump administration’s planned strategy to have the entire world economically isolate Tehran a “return to classical colonialism on a grand scale.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the plan Thursday as “the largest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world.” “If you insist on doing business with them, whether by transferring money, buying their oil or making maritime transfers, then the Treasury and the US government will use all their power and force to impose measures against you,” Bessent added. Baqaei denounced this, saying in a Friday social media post: “No state can legally force foreign banks, companies or airports to… each subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of its own sovereign – give up lawful trade with a third state.” “These secondary sanctions have no basis in international law,” Baqaei added. “When combined with a naval blockade that amounts to military aggression, these demands reduce the sovereignty of all other states to something provisional, conditional and revocable at the whim of another power.” “The end result would be the complete erosion of sovereignty as the fundamental basis of the UN-based interstate system, and a recipe for an abysmal return to large-scale classical colonialism,” he concluded.
