THE WASHINGTON POST: After pledging swift results, Trump team prepares for long economic war with Iran

As the Trump administration pivoted to economic pressure instead of military force to push Tehran back into talks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pledged swift damage to Iran’s economy.

All Iranian airlines would be grounded worldwide by the end of September, he said last month. The country would run out of oil to sell by the end of this week.

Iran’s economy is suffering. But those pledges and timelines by the Trump administration have proved difficult to meet as it faces an Iranian government with more impetus to endure pain than to back down.

The U.S. blockade of Iranian ports has forced oil exports to minimal levels, depriving Tehran of billions of dollars in monthly revenue. But Iran continues to sell oil that it exported during the June truce. And Tehran moves some 250,000 barrels of oil a day out of the country by land, according to Kpler, a global intelligence firm.

President Donald Trump has said the economic pressure campaign, now in its second month, is intended to force Iran back to the negotiating table after the U.S. midterm elections in November, but talks remained stalled, with Iranian officials refusing to moderate their demands.

At the same time, Tehran has escalated militarily against shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, hitting more than nine vessels in a single week. The strikes follow expanded U.S. operations in the area that had facilitated higher oil flows, but failed to move global energy prices.

Regardless, the Trump administration thinks time is on its side, according to a senior administration official, who declined to discuss Bessent’s remarks, including the specifics of his timelines for economic pain.

“You’ve really seen that time dynamic shift,” the official said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the administration. While Iran was able to weather previous rounds of economic pressure by dipping into its oil revenue, the U.S. blockade removes that wiggle room and is increasing the effectiveness of sanctions, the official said.

The airlines

The Trump administration announced sweeping sanctions targeting Iranian aviation on Sept. 8, threatening foreign companies that service Iran’s airlines with secondary sanctions.

At the time, Bessent told CNBC that “all the Iranian airlines will be shut down around the world” by Sept. 23. He said the Trump administration had “seen enablers throughout the world.”

“We know who they are, they know who they are, and we are putting a stop to it,” he said.

But as of October, international flights to and from Iran continue, including flights to China, Iraq and Turkey.

Flight-tracking firms reported that international flights in and out of Iran dropped by about half in the days following the U.S. announcement. Recent flight-tracking data from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran showed flights arriving from Islamabad, Pakistan; Istanbul; Moscow and Shanghai.

U.S. officials met with representatives from dozens of countries to build support ahead of the campaign’s announcement. Treasury officials visited the United Arab Emirates, Britain and Oman to discuss upcoming efforts on aviation and banking.

While reaching out to allies, the Trump administration addressed concerns about how long the economic pressure campaign would take, according to the administration official.

“Look, we want to see a resolution to this as quickly as possible,” he said he told U.S. allies. “The sooner they can cut off all these lifelines so that Iran knows it has nowhere else to go, the sooner we’re going to get to that resolution.”

But analysts and former officials say sanctions campaigns like Trump’s Operation Economic Outcast targeting Iran can take months to years to force change.

“When it comes to these economic campaigns, they are only as effective as you are willing to maintain them and enforce them, and that requires a commitment over time,” said Matthew Levitt, a former Treasury Department official and senior fellow at the Washington Institute, a think tank.

The banks

In his announcement of Operation Economic Outcast, Bessent called for every branch of Bank Melli, a state-owned Iranian bank, to be shuttered.

“Any entity that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the U.S. dollar system. The clock is ticking,” he said. Last month, the Treasury imposed sanctions on the manager of an Emirati branch of the bank, and days later the United Arab Emirates blocked all branches there from processing transactions in and out of Iran.

In an indication that action against financial institutions could soon escalate, the Treasury Department issued an alert Monday that foreign financial institutions could now be subject to secondary sanctions without advance notice.

Other banks targeted include an Emirati branch of an Egyptian bank and Russia’s second-largest financial institution, VTB Bank.

There’s been an increase in interest in sanctions compliance “from across the globe,” said Cari Stinebower, a former Treasury official who advises companies on such matters for the Washington-headquartered law firm Steptoe.

“Some of that comes from the messaging from the White House, which is that the pressure on Iran is growing and will continue to grow,” she said. “I don’t see this administration as backing down or losing interest.”

The blockade

The United States reimposed its blockade on Iran in July after an interim deal to end the war fell apart. Since then, the operation has forced Iranian oil exports to low levels and deprived Tehran of billions of dollars in critical state revenue.

Iran has continued to sell oil that it had previously exported. Iran rushed more than 60 million barrels of oil out of its ports during the interim peace deal from mid-June to mid-July, and had steadily sold some of that stock, according to tallies compiled by oil analysts.

While it’s unclear how much is left, unsold, some oil analysts estimated that 30 million barrels remained last month and that Iran was selling around 500,000 barrels a day. Reuters reported Thursday that Iran’s stock of oil on vessels outside the blockade remained at some 20 million barrels.

The economic pressure, on the heels of a punishing military campaign, has plunged Iran into greater isolation than the country has experienced in decades. Richard Nephew, who served as a U.S. negotiator with Iran under the Biden administration, said multiple rounds of conflict with Israel and the U.S. had already cut Iran off.

“Part of the reason why they can be more aggressive on this is Iran doesn’t have as many of these connections anymore. They had already atrophied,” said Nephew.

Nephew said the entities targeted so far to further isolate Tehran are “meaningful,” but “are these kill shots to the Iranian economy? Probably not.”