Overview
- President Donald Trump announced on Thursday a campaign he called “the most devastating economic operation ever undertaken,” warning that any country or company that aids Iran will face “tremendous economic consequences.”
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the plan aims to collapse the Iranian regime and urged allies to join or face penalties, signaling possible new and secondary sanctions against third-party buyers of Iranian oil.
- China publicly rejected the U.S. approach, urging political solutions, and Iran condemned the move as “economic terrorism,” heightening diplomatic tensions between Washington, Beijing and Tehran.
- U.S. forces have established a protected southern corridor through the Strait of Hormuz that U.S. officials say is moving roughly 10 million barrels per day after strikes degraded Iranian maritime radar and surveillance.
- Analysts caution Iran’s decades-long sanctions resilience — shadow fleets, smuggling networks, non-dollar trades and buyers in China and Russia — makes rapid regime collapse unlikely and raises the prospect of prolonged economic and regional strain.