“As Washington launches its latest plan to cripple Iran’s economy, the Islamic Republic has threatened a regional and global response designed to raise the stakes for the United States and the world. In a news conference on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the US will target a complex network built by Iran over”, — write on: www.cnn.com
As Washington launches its latest plan to cripple Iran’s economy, the Islamic Republic has threatened a regional and global response designed to raise the stakes for the United States and the world.
In a news conference on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the US will target a complex network built by Iran over years to allow its entities to evade Washington’s wide-ranging sanctions. The move comes after six months of a war launched by the US and Israel that has since reached a stalemate amid a lack of diplomatic resolution.
The sweeping secondary sanctions unveiled by Bessent include penalties for Iranian trade partners in sectors that the Islamic Republic uses to prop its economy, such as digital assets, technology and shipping. But the much-anticipated announcement of Trump’s “economic D-Day” measures left many underwhelmed after Washington decided to hold off on imposing major new measures, instead focusing largely on expanding and stepping up enforcement of existing sanctions, while warning that stricter penalties could follow for countries that did not cut ties.
Instead of succumbing to the threats, Iran is touting its ability to inflict reciprocal pain, warning of expanded strikes on regional oil producers and European countries, and even teasing the weaponization of its nuclear program.
“We’ve been playing chess for a long time…we’ve also learned to play poker,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters on Monday. “Now, for some time, we’ve been playing a combination of the two.”
Here’s how Iran could respond to the US economic escalation:
For months, Iran has blocked vessels from using the Strait of Hormuz, preventing regional countries from exporting oil and gas through a route that before the war accounted for a fifth of global supplies. Iran’s proxy in Yemen, the Houthi group, has recently opened a new front in the Red Sea, targeting Saudi oil exports and infrastructure.
Now, the Islamic Republic’s top military officials are threatening to strike energy targets beyond the Strait of Hormuz, potentially hitting some of the emerging oil shipment routes that bypass the waterway.
“If the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported, neither through the Strait of Hormuz nor from anywhere in the Persian Gulf,” Mohsen Rezaei, the leader of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X. “We will retaliate in an earthquake-like manner,” he said later in a televised interview.
Any resulting attacks or disruption to shipping could drive global oil prices higher, likely raising gasoline prices at US pumps.
Aided by the US Navy, Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari and UAE oil companies have started turning transponders off in their oil tankers to evade detection by Iranian authorities, and have been exporting oil with some success, although crossings are well below pre-war figures.
Saudi Arabia has rerouted about 5 million barrels of oil per day through its East-West pipeline that allows it to export via the Red Sea instead of Hormuz. Middle Eastern oil producers have rerouted another 2 million barrels per day around the strait.
Iran has signaled that it has those tankers in its crosshairs, publishing a list of 45 vessels it says are failing to comply with the rules it seeks to impose on Hormuz shipping, and warning that vessels violating its protocols will face restrictions on future passages, including “fines, detention, or confiscation.”
Expanding the geographic scope of the war
Tehran could also target locations farther afield with its missiles.
On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry pointed to US refueling aircraft leaving Bulgarian territory, warning that Tehran could target the European Union nation, which is also a NATO member.
“Iran has the legitimate right to target the point of origin and source of any act of aggression,” Baghaei told reporters on Monday, adding that Tehran has “made clear that any action regarded as supporting US and Israeli military aggression against Iran constitutes, under international law, participation in an act of aggression.”
Over the course of the war, Iran has struck 11 countries, mostly in the Gulf region. But it is also believed to have attacked a base used by British forces in Cyprus and has apparently demonstrated an ability to reach islands used by American forces deep in the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles away.
An attack on a US-allied EU nation and NATO member like Bulgaria would mark a significant escalation.
“Iran will regard any country’s participation in or support for America’s economic war against the Iranian people as an act of war,” Rezaei said.
Iran has repeatedly maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful and that it does not seek to build a bomb, despite claims by Israel and the US that have led to multiple attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Following the US-Israeli killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – who had banned nuclear weapons – the narrative among some official circles in Iran has gradually been shifting toward withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which commits members to never building a bomb.
Around half a ton of highly enriched uranium – which can be used to build a weapon – remains buried inside Iran, with US intelligence assessing that Tehran has escalated efforts to seal off the cache.
Iran’s parliament is debating a bill to withdraw from the NPT, according to Iranian lawmakers. On Sunday, Rezaei issued a rare statement touting the possibility of the country developing a nuclear weapon.
“The whole world is saying, ‘So the NPT has no effect?’” he told the state broadcaster in an interview, adding, “when America is carrying out such a war, people ask: Why shouldn’t we pursue nuclear weapons ourselves?”
Adaptation and deterrence
Experts say Washington’s collective measures of blockade, sanctions and military action are unlikely to lead to Iran abandoning its core negotiating positions of economic relief and acknowledgement of its control over the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran retains an ability to regionalize the costs imposed on it by threatening energy flows, infrastructure and regional commerce,” Sina Toossi, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., told CNN. “The more comprehensive Washington tries to make the economic blockade, the more countries it needs to cooperate, and potentially the more actors Tehran will pressure in response.”
For now, Toossi said, Iran’s response will become a combination of economic adaptation and escalation deterrence.
“Build alternative lifelines where possible, while making clear that an attempt at complete economic strangulation will not be cost-free for the region.”