Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged Friday that the U.S. blockade has slashed Iran’s trade and left critical imports — including gasoline — unable to enter the country, as the Trump administration intensifies an economic offensive aimed at isolating a regime already confronting mounting hardship and the threat of renewed unrest.
Pezeshkian said Iranian imports and exports have fallen between 25 and 35 percent under U.S. sanctions and the blockade, with his government now considering doubling the price of gasoline purchased beyond subsidized quotas as supplies tighten. “The route is now blocked, and goods are not coming in,” he conceded during a televised interview Friday night. “One of those goods is gasoline.”
The admissions came as Washington began putting teeth behind Operation Economic Outcast, the sweeping pressure campaign Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched Monday with a pledge to economically “asphyxiate” Tehran and “sever every economic lifeline” sustaining the regime. On Friday, Treasury took its first major step against a foreign financial institution, proposing to cut Banque Misr UAE off from correspondent access to U.S. banks after identifying its Emirati operations as a “critical node” keeping Iranian networks connected to U.S. dollars.
Over the previous two and a half years, the bank processed roughly $1.8 billion for 103 companies potentially tied to Iranian shadow-banking networks, including apparent fronts linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s defense establishment, according to Treasury. Bessent had put foreign banks on notice Monday that they could no longer help finance Tehran while retaining access to the dollar-based financial system. By Friday, he had his first example. (Read More)
The admissions came as Washington began putting teeth behind Operation Economic Outcast, the sweeping pressure campaign Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched Monday with a pledge to economically “asphyxiate” Tehran and “sever every economic lifeline” sustaining the regime. On Friday, Treasury took its first major step against a foreign financial institution, proposing to cut Banque Misr UAE off from correspondent access to U.S. banks after identifying its Emirati operations as a “critical node” keeping Iranian networks connected to U.S. dollars.
Over the previous two and a half years, the bank processed roughly $1.8 billion for 103 companies potentially tied to Iranian shadow-banking networks, including apparent fronts linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s defense establishment, according to Treasury. Bessent had put foreign banks on notice Monday that they could no longer help finance Tehran while retaining access to the dollar-based financial system. By Friday, he had his first example. (Read More)
