Iranian officials have dismissed President Donald Trump’s threat to launch what he called the “most crushing economic operation”against Tehran, as the nearly six-month war enters a new phase of economic pressure and negotiations between the two countries remain stalled. Trump announced the campaign late Wednesday, threatening consequences for countries that continue to provide Iran with access to global trade and financial networks. TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.
The President also called on U.S. allies to impose additional restrictions on Tehran in order to “cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide.” “This will be an economic D-Day, and we need all of our allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat,” he said. D-Day commonly refers to June 6, 1944, Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy, France, which opened a major Western front against Nazi Germany. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday the United States will impose "maximum economic pressure" on Iran.
We have the blockade (on Iran), and we are going to have the toughest sanctions in history," Bessent told CNBC. "It is going to work in Iran and we are going to collapse this regime." Iranian officials rejected Trump’s threats and instead pointed to the strains the conflict has placed on the U.S. economy. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the move a “diversion from America's own crisis: unprecedented debt & surging interest costs.” “Doubling down on failed policies will only bring further defeat—and enmity of Iranians.
U.S. economic terrorism threatens global economy and sovereignty worldwide,” he said Thursday morning. The U.S. national public debt surpassed $40 trillion threshold this week. Iran's deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi similarly took aim at Trump’s rhetoric, arguing that the President’s threats have become less relevant as the conflict, which began on Feb. 28, approaches its six-month mark.
The problem is the wrong calculations that, each time to cover them up, they’re forced to create a bigger failure for themselves,” he said Thursday on social media. Neither threat resulted in the action that Trump initially described. The latest warning came a day after the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a major regional trading hub with Iran, announced that it would suspend trade with Iran following reported missile strikes.
Since the start of the war, the U.S. has imposed additional heavy economic sanctions on Iran as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign intended to restrict funding for Tehran’s military capabilities. Some Iranian officials have responded by calling for the country to abandon its international nuclear commitments. The NPT, also known as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is an international agreement aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.
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