Washington Launches Sanctions Blitz on Iran

The new round of pressure on Tehran is not just a message from Washington to Iran, it is also a signal to every country still trading with Iran, including those that are not formally part of the Western sanctions front. For Serbia, which imports much of its oil derivatives and whose oil company NIS has for years been under pressure from US measures over its Russian ownership, any new blow to the global oil market and to the financial flows around Iran has a direct link to fuel prices at home.

The United States Department of the Treasury launched a campaign on Monday, August 24, called Operation Economic Outcast. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent presented the campaign at a press conference, comparing it to D-Day from World War II. “In that same spirit, we are launching an economic assault on Iran’s financial ties around the world,” Bessent said.

The declared goal of the operation is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end a war that has lasted six months, one that Washington originally expected to last four to six weeks. The sanctions now extend to five areas: digital assets, gold, air travel, technology procurement and shipping. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed nearly sixty companies, individuals and vessels on its list. Five ships, the SIFRA, G SILVER, QUANTUM HOPE, VOYAGE ELITE and TELA, were designated as blocked property, along with financial intermediaries in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Hong Kong, among them Wellbred Capital and its affiliated companies, for brokering trade in Iranian oil.

Bessent said that any entity that helps launder money on Iran’s behalf “will be removed from the United States’ dollar system,” adding that “the clock has just started ticking.” Every branch of Iran’s Bank Melli, he said, “must be shut down and closed.” At the same time, he stressed that secondary sanctions do not take effect immediately: each country gets a deadline to wind down business with Iran and a window to correct its conduct before being hit. “We are giving everyone a chance to correct bad behavior,” the secretary said. He also announced that a major financial institution would be sanctioned by the end of the week over its dealings with Iran, while President Donald Trump is personally calling foreign leaders and asking them to halt specific business with Tehran.

Iran’s Minister of Economy Ali Madanizadeh said Tehran had been preparing for such moves for a long time and has a plan for the next two years. The market reaction was swift: the Iranian rial fell to a record 2.02 million to the dollar on the informal market. Brent crude dropped 0.6 percent the same day, to $90.04 a barrel, though it remains well above pre-war levels.

Tension over maritime traffic in the region is spreading beyond the Strait of Hormuz in the meantime. The Houthis said on Monday they had hit the Saudi tanker Amzan with a ballistic missile off Yanbu, on Saudi Arabia’s western coast in the northern Red Sea. Britain’s maritime authority confirmed the strike about 63 miles off Yanbu, with a fire on deck but no crew injuries. Iranian security official Mohsen Rezai responded:

“If the countries around Iran join the Americans in their economic war, not a single drop of oil will leave the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.”

Regional diplomacy is moving in parallel. Pakistan’s army chief was in Tehran for talks on de-escalating the situation, while China said it would protect its own interests and opposes unilateral sanctions, a point that matters given that Bessent openly said “no one is out of reach” of US measures, including Chinese banks that finance imports of Iranian oil.

We covered the earlier phase of this campaign last week, when the sanctions package was first announced and Tehran threatened to seize assets in response. The package now has a name, a concrete target list and a deadline for third countries, while the announcement of a major financial institution that could be sanctioned by the end of the week remains an open question.