The President of the United States, Donald Trump, bored with stalled diplomatic negotiations to end the war with Iran, had hinted that he would focus the conflict on the economic front. He has done so. This Wednesday he announced a new economic offensive against the Islamic Republic that he described as the most impactful operation ever undertaken against a country. With it, he seeks to cut off the financing and economic support channels that Tehran relies on to survive.
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“I announce the most destructive economic operation ever taken against any country,” the president wrote on his social network, Truth. “This is going to be an economic war and unprecedented isolation (against Iran).” In the text, he threatens “tremendous economic consequences” to any country that allows its financial institutions, companies, airports, or government entities to provide “any kind of lifeline to Iran.”
“Oil smuggling, currency exchanges, cash transfers, exchange houses, shipping registries, shell companies: all of that has to end now,” declares the U.S. president. “This is going to be an economic D-day,” he asserts.
Trump also calls for help from allied countries to implement the plan. “We need all our allies to join the United States to isolate and defeat the Iranian threat,” he states, before calling the Iranian authorities “maniacs” and assuring that “they are on the ropes.” “These historic measures will choke them and their ability to project terror around the world,” he adds.
The U.S. president had declared on Tuesday, in another message on his social network, that currently there are no ongoing negotiations with Iran nor are any planned on the horizon, a day after the deadline that the two enemies had set in June to negotiate a definitive peace agreement expired. In an interview with a Fox News journalist that day, the Republican had said he was in “no hurry” to reach an agreement with Tehran.
The president posted on his social networks on Tuesday an image of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic maritime passage that has become the key to the conflict, which he presented as “new U.S. territory.” According to Trump, the situation in that area is “very good” and merchant ships can pass through despite Iran’s blockade. But the commercial flow that manages to pass through that bottleneck is only a tiny fraction of what crossed before the war began on February 28, when 20% of the world’s oil and gas passed through that corridor.
The United States maintains its own lock on the ports of the adversary country, which Trump considers is dealing a severe blow to the Iranian economy. However, despite the U.S. president’s statements claiming that Tehran is eager to close a deal, the Islamic Republic shows no signs of yielding. It is unclear to what extent the new measures announced by the president will have an effect or if they will manage to dent the enemy’s resistance.
Trump’s announcement this Wednesday comes a day after the United Arab Emirates, one of Iran’s main trading partners, announced the suspension of its trade and financial dealings with its neighbor, after blaming Tehran for launching two ballistic missiles against its territory. The Islamic Republic denies that the projectiles were theirs.
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