Sanctions

Aug. 25 (UPI) — China is angrily pushing back against the President Donald Trump administration on new sanctions against Iran that will harm it.

China said it would defend its interests against the United States and accused the administration of disrupting the global financial order.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent set out plans to “sever every economic lifeline” to Iran, targeting countries that do business with the country.

China’s foreign ministry representative, Lin Jian, said China is firmly opposed to what it called “illegal unilateral sanctions” and would take “all necessary measures” to defend its rights.

“Cooperation between China and Iran has always been conducted within the framework of international law and should not be interfered with or disrupted,” Lin said.

China is the largest customer of Iranian oil.

The United States listed more than 60 brokers, companies and ships facing new sanctions. They included more than a dozen small businesses from Hong Kong and China, The New York Times reported. But larger companies in China weren’t on the list, which some have speculated means Washington was being careful not to antagonize the country.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is planning to visit the United States next month to meet with Trump and continue talks.

Iranian Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh said Tehran was “fully prepared” for the broader sanctions, which he said would lead to “another defeat” for the United States.

“The government is and was ready and has a two-year plan to manage these events,” he told state television. “We also have our own tools and know how to play the game,” he said. He also said that Tehran had been “waiting for these plans for a long time.”

Mérida, August 24, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) –The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued two general licenses granting specific permissions for telecommunications operations with Venezuela.

Under General License 61 (GL61), published on Friday, OFAC authorized US companies to provide “technology, software, or services for the installation, maintenance, refurbishment, repair, upgrade, operation, or support of telecommunications” to Venezuela’s state-owned telecommunications company CANTV and National Telecommunications Commission CONATEL.

According to official OFAC definitions, telecommunications services encompass fixed and mobile telephony, data transmission, internet connectivity, radio and television broadcasting, news agency feeds, satellite communications, and submarine cables.

GL61 permits specific operational activities, including payment processing, logistics, air freight, insurance, data storage, server maintenance, roaming agreements, and infrastructure leasing. However, the license specifies that Venezuelan state entities must procure new acquisitions directly from US companies or US citizens.

In addition, the Trump administration published General License 62 (GL62), authorizing negotiations for contracts in Venezuela’s telecommunications sector, though specific agreements remain contingent on a separate specific license,

Both sanctions waivers impose that any contracts be governed by the laws of a state or federal jurisdiction within the United States. Furthermore, the licenses demand that “dispute resolution proceedings relating to the contract occur in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, or Singapore.”

The Treasury licenses maintain bans on debt swaps, physical gold, or digital currencies and tokens issued by or on behalf of the Venezuelan government.

Furthermore, GL61 and GL62 maintain restrictions prohibiting “any transaction involving a person located in the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Cuba, the People’s Republic of China, or any entity that is owned or controlled by or in a joint venture with such persons”.

Since the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Washington has upheld its wide-reaching coercive economic sanctions in areas such as energy and mining,  while issuing licenses to favor US and Western corporations.

US sanctions and restrictions on Chinese technology firms present a challenge to CANTV’s recent operational landscape. For the past two decades, the Venezuelan government has forged bilateral agreements with Chinese telecom firms, including ZTE and Huawei, establishing joint projects to manufacture and deploy telecommunications equipment domestically. 

Over the last decade, CANTV has worked with Huawei and ZTE to modernize networks, expand fiber-optic infrastructure, and sustain broadband services nationwide. Venezuelan authorities have not commented on the latest US licenses and potential impact on existing agreements.

In addition, CANTV has been identified by analysts as a potential candidate for privatization. The company has recently been mired in controversy after reportedly slashing retired workers’ incomes. Retirees have staged protests in several states in recent days after a US $200 monthly bonus was arbitrarily slashed, while also demanding the restoration of basic medical insurance and health coverage guaranteed by collective bargaining agreements.

In parallel, CONATEL has launched technical and legal working sessions with representatives of SpaceX’s Starlink service to examine radio spectrum allocation, equipment homologation, and regulatory compliance under Venezuela’s Organic Telecommunications Law.

Despite Maduro previously criticizing SpaceX owner Elon Musk for destabilizing politics in Venezuela and Latin America, the acting Delcy Rodríguez government thanked the tech mogul for activating free Starlink services in the wake of the June 24 double earthquake in the Caribbean nation.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announces new sanctions on Tehran to sever financial support for the regime, urging US allies to support the measures.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced new economic sanctions on Tehran, describing the measures as an “economic D-Day” as the US war on Iran approaches the six-month mark.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the sanctions on Monday, alongside a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

Bessent said the sanctions target key sources of Iran’s revenue, including its oil and gas industry, and called on countries around the world to cut economic ties with Tehran.

What are the sanctions?

The Treasury Department said the sanctions will target Iran’s aviation, digital assets, gold, technology and shipping sectors, as well as impose sanctions on 60 specific individuals and vessels.

“The main point is that Iran seems to have much less room than it did in previous years to simply work around sanctions,” Peiman Salehi, a Tehran-based geopolitical analyst, told Al Jazeera.

Bessent also said on Monday that the new sanctions expose Tehran’s trade partners to secondary penalties. According to a Treasury Department release on Monday, the targets include ships based in or associated with countries including Singapore, China, and Hong Kong.

“Today’s sanctions are mostly incremental, but are part of trying to intimidate remaining trading partners into cutting ties [with Iran],” said Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank.

“There’s a lot of signalling and bluster aimed at getting other countries to crack down on entities involved in grey-zone trade, but new measures are mostly incremental for now,” she said. Grey-zone trade refers to both illegal, underground trade and trade that is unsanctioned but difficult.

The Treasury Department said Iran has used cryptocurrency to circumvent its longtime sanctions and facilitate transactions involving the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and members of the Iranian regime. The department also said Iran has used gold to help prop up the value of its currency amid economic instability.

The new shipping sanctions target Iran’s state-linked shipping fleet, which the Treasury Department alleges is being used to transport oil as well as “sensitive weapons components”.

The technology sanctions are intended to restrict Iran’s acquisition of materials that could be used in its weapons programmes. The aviation sanctions target Iranian airlines that the Treasury Department alleges are being used to transport weapons and military personnel, as well as financial resources to Iran’s proxies.

Washington also indefinitely suspended several broad exceptions to its ongoing sanctions on Iran, including those covering academic exchanges, personal money transfers and certain sporting activities. Organisations currently engaged in those activities have until September 8 to wind down their operations.

Ziemba says these measures “will have more effect on Iranians, not just the regime”.

What sanctions were already in place?

Washington’s sanctions on Iran have been in place since 1979, after students took hostages at the US Embassy in Tehran, and increased over the next 45 years. Sanctions were briefly paused, however, after the administration of President Barack Obama and world powers signed a nuclear deal with Tehran in 2015. But the Trump administration withdrew from the deal during its first term, in 2018, bringing back old penalties while adding new ones.

Washington imposed new sanctions during Trump’s second term, many of them before the US and Israel first struck the country on February 28.

In February 2025, the Treasury Department sanctioned 30 individuals and vessels involved in the “brokering [of] the sale and transportation of Iranian petroleum-related products”, according to a department release. The targets were based in several countries, including India and China.

In December 2025, Washington sanctioned 29 vessels it accused of being part of a so-called shadow fleet used to transport Iranian petroleum. It also sanctioned Egyptian businessman Hatem Elsaid Farid Ibrahim Sakr over his businesses’ alleged ties to seven of those 29 vessels. The measures continued the 1979 sanctions campaign against Iran’s oil industry.

The Treasury Department stepped up the sanctions again in April 2026, targeting another two dozen individuals, companies and vessels operating within the network of Iranian oil shipping magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, the son of now-deceased senior Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani.

Later that same month, the Treasury also targeted what it described as “regime-linked cryptocurrency” and said it had seized nearly half a billion dollars from so-called “shadow banking networks”.

How have sanctions affected US consumers?

Pressure on the Iranian oil market, both through existing sanctions as well as the current war, has tightened the rest of the globe’s oil supply and affected countries that buy Iranian oil.

China, for example, is the primary destination for Iranian oil, buying roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports. Beijing bought 1.4 million barrels per day in 2025.

At the same time, Asian markets, China included, also heavily rely on oil travelling through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, where roughly one-fifth of the globe’s oil transited before Iran choked off the route.

This has put pressure on the global oil supply, meaning the benchmark for crude oil has ticked up, translating to higher prices on fuel and food.

For US consumers, that has been most apparent at the petrol pump. The average price for a gallon of petrol (3.78 litres) is $4.09, up from $2.98 on February 28 when the US and Israel first struck Iran, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), which tracks daily petrol prices.

Experts warn that if Iran retaliation accelerates, it could hit Americans hard.

“If sanctions provoke Iranian retaliation against Gulf shipping, materially reduce oil exports, or cause insurers and shipping companies to avoid the region, then Americans could feel it very quickly through gasoline, diesel, airfares, freight costs and ultimately inflation,” John Deal, managing director of capital markets at Post Oak Group investment bank, told Al Jazeera.

The economy and Iran are emerging as key issues heading into the US midterm elections, with voters expressing dissatisfaction on both fronts. That could put pressure on Republicans in competitive races, including in traditionally red states such as Texas.

A late-July Reuters/Ipsos poll suggested that only about a third of Americans supported the war, while just 28 percent of respondents in a CNN poll approved of Trump’s handling of Iran.

On the economy, an AP/NORC poll suggested that 32 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s performance. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, meanwhile, suggested that Democrats were narrowly ahead of Republicans on which party voters trust more to handle the economy—the first Democratic advantage in roughly a decade.

How are the sanctions affecting markets?

The latest sanctions announcement is weighing on Wall Street as well as the oil and gold markets.

On the heels of the announcement, the price of gold, largely considered a safe investment during times of economic uncertainty, jumped by 0.8 percent to $4,639.49 per ounce (28 grams) in midday trading, ticking up to its highest level since mid-May.

As for oil, prices pulled back on Monday after two weeks of gains. The price of the global benchmark Brent crude tumbled by more than 2 percent on Monday to $85.22 a barrel.

On Wall Street, the major indices are mixed amid the latest sanctions news as well as Trump’s announcement of new tariffs on Canada. The Nasdaq is down 0.5 percent, and the S&P 500 is down 0.2 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, is trending in positive territory, 0.2 percent higher than the market open on Monday.

The oil sector is taking a hit. Chevron is down 0.8 percent, ExxonMobil tumbled 0.9 percent, BP fell more than 2 percent, and Shell is down 0.2 percent.

WASHINGTON — The United States unveiled plans Monday for new sanctions against Iran that Trump administration officials said are designed to sever Tehran from the global financial system as the nearly six-month conflict between the two countries drags on.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who previewed the announcement last week as “economic D-Day,” described the measures as the opening of an all-out financial assault on the Iranian government and its trade partners — a group that includes China, India, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

“To those who enable Tehran, do not discount the cost of testing Washington’s resolve,” Bessent said at a news conference. “No nation should expect to enjoy the rewards of our system while helping those who seek to destroy it.”

Bessent said it was time for world leaders to “make a decision” between “America and Iran,” adding that President Trump has already been calling foreign leaders to make specific requests ahead of the new sanctions.

But when asked whom the president had been talking to, Bessent said he would not “name names.” He also said the secondary measure would not take effect immediately, arguing that the administration is trying to give “everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior.”

“Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Bessent said when a reporter pressed him on why the sanctions weren’t immediate. “We believe that it is important to level set and give people a cure period, but they should know that that will move very quickly and that we are serious.”

The pressure campaign will build on a naval blockade and other sanctions the Trump administration has already imposed in its effort to force Tehran into a deal that ends the war on U.S. terms.

Trump’s latest economic push against Iran revives a familiar strategy from presidents of both parties, using financial leverage to pressure Tehran toward more serious negotiations over its nuclear program. Sanctions helped bring Iran to the table before a 2015 nuclear deal brokered by President Obama, but the agreement was widely criticized as weak by Republicans. After Trump withdrew from the agreement in his first term, a new “maximum pressure” campaign failed to secure a new deal.

Trump’s decision to return to a strategy of economic coercion has signaled to Iran that the fighting phase of the war is probably over, for now, with the U.S. administration choosing a path “neither of war nor of peace,” Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president, said this week.

Iranian officials, who had been anticipating the move, pushed back on Washington’s strategy even before Bessent began speaking Monday.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian state media over the weekend that the sanctions amounted to a repackaged version of decades-old American pressure tactics that Tehran has already learned to withstand. Esmail Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, warned of “grave consequences” for any countries cooperating with what he said was “illegal behavior” by the United States. And Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme Security Council, suggested that the economic pressure could shut down oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, a threat that would ripple through global energy markets.

That defiance underscores the central gamble of Washington’s strategy. Rather than aiming sanctions at Iran alone, Bessent’s plan to potentially squeeze major economies like China and India over their ties to Tehran could pose a diplomatic risk to the U.S.

The fallout could also reach beyond foreign diplomacy as a hit to global markets also risks compounding Trump’s troubles at home ahead of the midterm elections, as Americans grow unhappy with the economy and their support for the conflict in the Middle East plummets. The Iran sanctions also land as the administration wages a separate trade fight with Canada, adding uncertainty to global and domestic markets.

Whether Washington will be able to apply pressure on Iran’s trade partners remains an open question.

China alone shares nearly $10 billion in bilateral trade with Iran, and paid roughly $31.2 billion for unreported Iranian crude oil imports in 2025, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. That makes China the largest buyer of Iranian crude oil by a wide margin, accounting for more than 90% of Iran’s oil exports, according to the commission.

It is unclear whether Trump has spoken to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, about the sanctions. But the two leaders are set to meet in Washington next month, adding to the diplomatic dynamics of the moment.

Other trading partners have already made some moves.

The UAE said last week that it was suspending trade with Iran, a decision that followed accusations that Tehran had fired two ballistic missiles at the Emirates.

Afra Al Hameli, a spokesperson for the Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a post on Aug. 18 on X that all trade, commercial exchanges and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice. She added that the Emirates was “firmly committed to safeguarding the integrity of the international financial system.”

Bessent said Monday that he expects other countries will “take similar actions as we continue our engagement.”

In an opinion article written for the Financial Times last week, Bessent has cast the new measures as the “single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary.”

Bessent wrote that countries that “sever Iran’s remaining financial and commercial connectivity” will see their economies reinvigorated, and those who don’t will experience the end of their “lasting prosperity.”

“Any nation that serves as a financial artery of a withering regime should expect to share in its isolation,” he wrote. “To become a sanctuary for terror is to become, in the eyes of the United States, a global pariah.”

Ahead of the announcement Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran was “completely collapsing.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s central bank governor, Abdolnaser Hemmati, said the U.S. had already done all that it can against Iran and that the central bank had been shoring up its foreign currency reserves for months. Last week, he said Iran’s crude exports had “virtually stopped.”

“[The Americans] have done everything, so what else can they do?” he said in an interview with Tasnim News.

Despite his assurances that the central bank was working on preventing a devaluation of the Iranian rial, the currency has struggled to remain above a black market exchange rate of 2 million per dollar — a record low. The Central Bank rate stands at roughly 1.5 million rial to the dollar.

Though experts question the effectiveness of additional economic pressure on Tehran, Bessent’s threat to target Iran’s trading partners — especially the UAE, China and Turkey, who together comprise almost three-quarters of Iran’s foreign imports — will undoubtedly be painful for Iranians.

For example, Iran uses the UAE as a reexport hub and buffer, and receives vehicle spare parts from China, according to the Observatory for Economic Complexity. Iranian economic experts say both the agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors also rely on imports from countries such as Brazil and Turkey.

Ceballos reported from Washington and Bulos from Beirut.

Published on
24/08/2026 – 11:00 GMT+2

The US is ramping up its economic pressure on Iran after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared the start of an “economic D-Day”.

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According to Bessent, this represents “the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary.” He set out the position in a post on X late on Sunday and in a Financial Times opinion article published the same day.

Bessent stated that US President Donald Trump’s military campaign had “significantly dismantled Iran’s military capabilities and weakened its nuclear programme”. He added that the administration is now “entering the endgame” and that the economic measures begin at dawn.

The objective, according to the US Treasury Secretary, is to “sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone”.

Bessent cautioned countries that continue to buy or transport Iranian petroleum, facilitate financial flows through exchange houses and free trade zones, handle flights, maintain ship registries or enable seaborne fuel transfers, that any remaining links would accelerate their own isolation.

The comments follow remarks by US President Donald Trump last week. At the time, Trump announced in a Truth Social post “the most crushing economic operation ever taken agaisnt any country!”

Despite both declarations, specific measures have not yet been set out.

According to Bessent’s outline, the package could centre on secondary sanctions against nations and entities that keep purchasing Iranian oil, process its finances, operate related banks or support shipping and other commercial channels, layered on top of the existing naval blockade.

Bessent is scheduled to hold a press conference at 7 PM CET on Monday to announce the concrete steps.

Market reaction

Oil prices are lower on Monday morning even as the rhetoric intensifies.

At the time of writing, Brent crude, the international standard, is trading at around $91.5 which is 2% lower than Friday’s close while West Texas Intermediate stands at roughly $86.2, about 1.5% lower than last week’s close.

The fall may stem from profit-taking after recent gains and from reports of a temporary rise in tanker movements through the Strait of Hormuz.

According to shipping information cited by Axios, around 40 tankers transited the southern channel on Friday night, moving roughly 16 million barrels of oil, higher than the 15-20 vessels recorded on preceding nights.

Overall volumes through the waterway remain well below pre-conflict levels.

On the other hand, US futures are also in the red ahead of market open while European stocks are trading flat.

After nearly six months of war on Iran, the US appears to be taking a different approach.

President Donald Trump says Washington will carry out a “crushing economic operation”.

Attempts to reach an agreement to end the war have stalled.

Now, the US is calling on other countries to join what it calls the greatest coordinated economic isolation in history.

For its part, Iran says that any countries joining the US campaign will be treated as enemies.

What does this mean for the conflict?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Jamal Abdi – president of the National Iranian American Council

Hassan Ahmadian – professor at the University of Tehran and deputy director at the Center for Middle East Scientific and Strategic Studies

Mark Pfeifle – former White House deputy national security adviser and president of Off the Record Strategies

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei slams Trump’s latest threat as a return to ‘full-scale classic colonialism’.

Iran has decried impending United States sanctions as a “complete erosion of sovereignty” following US President Donald Trump’s threat to punish any country doing business with Tehran.

In a post on X on Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the US announcement was “an assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty” against the United Nations’ member states.

No state can compel foreign banks, enterprises or airports to renounce commerce with Iran, he said.

“The end result would be the complete erosion of sovereignty as the foundational basis of the UN-based inter-State system, and a recipe for an abysmal return to full-scale classic colonialism,” Baghaei said.

Trump announced on Wednesday the “most crushing economic operation” yet against Iran and said any country whose institutions interface with Tehran would face “tremendous economic consequences”.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doubled down on the president’s words on Thursday, saying the new sanctions regime would “collapse” Iran and that other countries are “either with us or against us”.

Iranian state media was quick to point out that Tehran has faced US sanctions for decades. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the new measures were “bound to fail”.

“We have seen this movie before,” Araghchi wrote on X, alongside a screenshot of a tweet from former President Barack Obama referencing earlier sanctions in 2012. “Same bull. Different bullies.”

The latest rhetorical back-and-forth comes as peace talks with Tehran have sputtered out. The US Navy has maintained its blockade against Iran’s ports, while oil shipment traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has virtually ceased.

Trump told reporters Friday that his government is “seeing what happens” in the conflict.

“They would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal in my opinion,” the president said.

While the US has blockaded Iranian vessels in their ports, the Strait of Hormuz remained bottled up with thousands of seafarers stranded on hundreds of vessels.

Only four commodity ships sailed along the strait on Thursday, none of them large crude carriers or liquefied natural gas tankers, ship-tracking data showed.

However, Iran has granted permission for several Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the strait following repeated requests from Baghdad, Iran’s state news agency IRNA ⁠reported on Saturday.

IRNA said obtaining special permission for Iraqi tankers was one of Baghdad’s main requests during Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher ⁠Ghalibaf’s visit to Iraq.

NEW YORK — Nearing the six-month mark of the Iran war and facing diminishing stockpiles of key weapons, the Trump administration is touting a crushing financial campaign against Tehran, promising an “economic D-Day” against a country that has withstood nearly five decades of punishing American sanctions.

With sparse details, President Trump announced this week that the U.S. would be imposing an “unprecedented” level of economic warfare and isolation on Iran, aiming to force its leadership to cave to demands to end its nuclear program and fully reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz to oil and natural gas tankers.

It reflects the dire reality Trump faces with an increasingly unpopular war he can’t seem to end just months before pivotal midterm elections that will decide whether his Republican Party keeps control of Congress. Whether out of desperation or strategy, the president is refocusing America’s might on bringing Iran to its knees through an accelerated sanctions campaign against one of the most economically penalized countries in the world.

In response to the threat, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted Friday on X the history of U.S. sanctions against Iran, saying, “We have seen this movie before. Same bull. Different bullies.”

The immediate reaction from Iran hawks has been praise and a call for patience as it plays out, while other analysts warn that Trump is refusing to learn the lessons of his predecessors.

In an interview Thursday on CNBC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a small glimpse of what may be ahead, threatening secondary sanctions on nations and companies that conduct business with Iran.

He did not reveal who would be targeted as part of this next phase of the administration’s Operation Economic Fury, which earlier had focused on entities and people who buy oil from or bank with Iran. China and India, however, are major buyers of Iranian oil.

“If you insist on doing business with them, then the U.S. Treasury and U.S. government will put its full might and force against you,” Bessent said. “It’s time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision.”

Some experts see ‘uncharted waters’ that could force Iran’s hand

Despite decades of U.S. sanctions against Iran, the Trump administration is arguing that it’s only a matter of time and that striking the right economic target would get Tehran to its breaking point.

Richard Goldberg, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in Trump’s first term, said the consequences of U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites last year, the war this year and the American naval blockade on Iranian ports have created the perfect storm for capitulation — one that didn’t previously exist.

“I think we’re watching a strategy, whether it takes a short time or a long time, that is very much about fundamentally changing the future of the world by seeing the end of this regime,” said Goldberg, who is now at the hawkish Washington think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, or FDD.

“I caution everyone — including myself, who has worked on sanctions, who’s worked on financial warfare — to have the humility to admit that we are in uncharted waters,” he said.

He said the decision this week by the United Arab Emirates — once one of Tehran’s most important trading partners — to suspend trade with Iran over an alleged missile attack will only further isolate the government.

Beyond trade in domestically produced goods, the Emiratis had helped the country absorb some of the shocks caused by sanctions through its re-export hub.

Targeting allies and partners comes at a price

With nearly all of Iran’s energy, financial and transportation sectors already covered by U.S. sanctions, Trump’s aim appears to be to apply secondary sanctions on countries, including allies and partners, that have not cut all ties with Iran to starve the country of any remaining income it may still be receiving.

In many ways, it is a redux of Trump’s first-term maximum-pressure campaign, which he has ramped up during his second term to include military action.

But as Trump and his allies discovered during his first administration, it can be difficult to enforce secondary sanctions without harming U.S. interests and provoking reciprocal measures. There were numerous instances of the administration granting sanctions waivers to countries, particularly those that rely on Iranian oil for their energy needs.

“Trump’s strategy now rests on targeting Tehran directly by impeding its touch points and access to the formal financial system and international economy,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the FDD’s Iran program. “This will require making the Iran issue more important in U.S. bilateral relations with countries in Europe and Asia.”

Iran doesn’t see an ‘open door’ at the end of the sanctions campaign

Iranian officials and analysts have accused the Republican president of flip-flopping with his latest pivot to economic pressure against Tehran. Trump has long derided past leaders who used sanctions to limit Iran’s ability to pay for its military and nuclear development.

In a post last week on X, Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, wrote that Washington’s pattern of retreating to sanctions when it doesn’t want to pursue diplomacy has proven to be futile.

“Iran has demonstrated over decades that it will not be strangled by these exhausted refrains,” he said. “The real risk is that American politicians, clinging to this bad habit, will instead strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making.”

Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, said the Trump administration’s decision to take its own maximum-pressure policy to new heights with military action seems to ignore years of U.S. foreign-policy lessons that show Iran does not respond well to pressure.

If anything, he says, the latest economic campaign has only “hardened Iran’s position.”

“I think (Trump’s) blind spot is the fact that the only thing that the Iranian regime views as more dangerous than suffering from U.S. sanctions is surrendering to U.S. terms,” Vaez said.

Plus, the past year of start-stop diplomacy has only worsened the already fragile dynamic between the longtime adversaries, Vaez says, adding that Iranian officials’ lack of trust in Trump and his mediators has created an untenable foundation.

“They believe that even if they capitulate to U.S. terms under economic duress, Trump would move the goalposts and ask for more,” he said. “And this is really the fundamental problem: Pressure without an open door is an exercise in futility.”

Amiri writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Matthew Lee and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Washington will impose its ‘toughest sanctions in history’ to ‘collapse’ Iran’s government, warning of consequences for countries that maintain economic ties with Tehran.

Japan has issued an unusually direct criticism of its U.S. ally after Washington imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye.

Japan’s foreign ministry described the sanctions as “very unfortunate” and reaffirmed Tokyo’s support for the ICC and its role in prosecuting serious international crimes. The statement marks a rare public disagreement between Tokyo and Washington over an issue of international law.

The dispute comes as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump intensifies its campaign against the Hague based court. Washington has increasingly challenged the ICC over its investigations and arrest warrants involving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as its earlier investigation into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

For Japan, however, the issue is particularly sensitive. Tokyo depends heavily on the United States for its national defence, yet it has consistently supported the ICC and the broader international legal framework surrounding it.

Why Did the U.S. Sanction ICC Officials?

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the sanctions targeted individuals involved in ICC efforts to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute officials from governments that have not consented to the court’s jurisdiction.

Among those sanctioned was Tomoko Akane, a Japanese judge who serves as ICC president. Abdoulaye Seye, a Senegalese senior trial lawyer, was also targeted. Seye was part of the prosecution team that sought an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and has been nominated for election as an ICC judge.

Washington argues that the ICC has exceeded its authority by pursuing officials from countries that have not accepted its jurisdiction.

The United States is not a member of the ICC and has repeatedly objected to the court’s actions involving American personnel and Israeli officials.

The latest sanctions therefore represent another escalation in Washington’s confrontation with the institution.

Why Is Japan Supporting the ICC?

Japan joined the ICC in 2007 and has consistently supported its role in prosecuting war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Tokyo’s foreign ministry said Japan remains committed to strengthening the rule of law internationally while maintaining communication with countries involved in the dispute.

Japan’s position reflects its broader commitment to international institutions and rules based governance.

For Tokyo, the ICC is not simply a legal institution. It is part of a wider international order in which disputes and allegations of serious crimes are addressed through established legal mechanisms.

That creates an obvious tension with Washington’s increasingly confrontational approach.

Why Is This Significant for U.S. Japan Relations?

Japan rarely criticises the United States publicly, particularly on issues involving national security.

The two countries maintain a close military alliance, with U.S. forces playing a central role in Japan’s defence and regional deterrence.

Japan’s decision to openly describe the sanctions as “very unfortunate” therefore carries diplomatic significance.

It does not indicate that Tokyo is abandoning Washington or challenging the broader alliance. Instead, it demonstrates that the two countries can maintain close security cooperation while disagreeing sharply over international law.

That distinction is becoming increasingly important as U.S. foreign policy under Trump diverges from the positions of several traditional allies.

The ICC Dispute Is Also Creating Friction in Europe

Japan is not the only U.S. ally to object to the latest sanctions.

The Netherlands, which hosts the ICC, has also criticised Washington’s action. Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen said the Netherlands opposed the sanctions and invited Akane to discuss continued support for the court.

The development places Washington increasingly at odds with European partners as well as Japan.

The disagreement therefore extends beyond the U.S. relationship with a single international institution. It raises broader questions about how far America’s allies are willing to follow Washington when its policies conflict with international institutions they continue to support.

What Do the Sanctions Actually Do?

The sanctions have significant practical consequences.

They freeze any U.S. assets held by the targeted individuals and largely cut them off from the American financial system. Because most internationally active banks maintain close connections with the U.S. financial system, the effects can extend beyond American jurisdiction.

The U.S. Treasury Department has also authorized a temporary wind down of transactions involving Akane and Seye through September 17.

The measures therefore do more than express political disagreement. They can directly affect the ability of sanctioned individuals to conduct international financial activities.

Washington’s Wider Campaign Against the ICC

The sanctions against Akane and Seye are part of a broader U.S. campaign against the court.

Washington previously imposed sanctions on several ICC prosecutors and judges after the court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant and pursued an earlier investigation involving U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Rubio has also indicated that the administration intends to intensify efforts against the ICC through diplomatic pressure on other countries.

According to Reuters, Washington has sought to encourage countries to leave the institution, with at least five countries already responding to the call.

The strategy therefore goes beyond individual sanctions. It represents an attempt to challenge the ICC’s legitimacy and reduce its international reach.

Why Does Japan’s Position Matter?

Japan’s response is significant because Tokyo has generally been closely aligned with Washington on major strategic questions.

Japan faces a challenging regional security environment involving China, North Korea and wider tensions in the Indo Pacific. Maintaining a strong U.S. alliance remains central to Japanese security policy.

Yet Tokyo has also invested heavily in supporting international institutions and the rule of law.

The ICC dispute highlights the possibility that these two pillars of Japanese foreign policy can sometimes pull in different directions.

Japan may need American military power for its security while simultaneously disagreeing with Washington on how international law should operate.

That is not necessarily a crisis in the alliance, but it illustrates its increasingly complicated political foundations.

Could the Dispute Deepen Divisions Among U.S. Allies?

The ICC controversy could contribute to a wider pattern of disagreement between Washington and its traditional partners.

The United States is increasingly willing to use economic and diplomatic pressure against international institutions it considers hostile to American interests. Several European governments, by contrast, continue to view those institutions as essential components of the rules based international order.

Japan’s criticism adds an important Asian voice to that disagreement.

If more U.S. allies openly defend the ICC, Washington could face growing diplomatic isolation on the issue even while maintaining strong bilateral security relationships.

That could make the dispute increasingly difficult to contain as a narrow disagreement between the United States and an international court.

How Far Can Japan Disagree With Washington?

Japan’s criticism of the ICC sanctions should not be interpreted as a fundamental rupture in the U.S. Japan alliance.

Tokyo remains heavily dependent on Washington for defence and security, and there is little indication that the ICC dispute will fundamentally alter that relationship.

Its importance lies elsewhere.

Japan is signalling that alliance solidarity does not necessarily require complete alignment on international law.

For Tokyo, supporting the ICC is consistent with a broader foreign policy objective: maintaining an international system governed by rules and institutions rather than purely by the power of individual states.

Washington’s position is increasingly different. The Trump administration views the ICC as a potential threat to American sovereignty and to officials from the United States and allied governments who could face prosecution by the court.

This creates an unusual strategic contradiction.

The United States and Japan remain closely aligned against major security challenges in the Indo Pacific, yet they are increasingly capable of finding themselves on opposite sides of debates over the international legal order.

The consequences could extend beyond the ICC itself.

If Washington continues using sanctions and diplomatic pressure against international institutions while its allies continue defending them, the United States may find that its strategic partnerships remain strong militarily but become more divided politically.

For Japan, the challenge will be maintaining its essential alliance with Washington without abandoning its support for the international legal institutions it considers important.

The ICC dispute therefore reveals a broader tension within the U.S. alliance system: strategic partners may remain united on security while increasingly disagreeing over the rules and institutions that are supposed to govern international politics.

With information from Reuters.

Aug. 18 (UPI) — The United States on Tuesday sanctioned two senior officials of the International Criminal Court, as the Trump administration cracks down on the global tribunal it calls a threat to U.S. sovereignty.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the rest of the Trump administration has aggressively targeted the court over arrest warrants it issued in November 2024 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on allegations of war crimes committed during the war in Gaza.

Though not a member of the court, the United States has rejected the warrants, even under the former Biden administration, and has been critical of its jurisdiction over U.S. citizens and potential for politicization. Under the administration of President Donald Trump, Washington has used its powers to target the court with punitive measures.

On Tuesday, Rubio unveiled sanctions against ICC President Tomoko Akane and ICC Senior Trial Lawyer Abdoulaye Seye on accusations that they were “directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction.”

“The ICC has repeatedly attempted to assert authority over nationals of the United States and other countries that have not consented to its jurisdiction or ratified the Rome Statute,” he said in a statement, referring to the international treaty that established the court in 2002 to try individuals accused of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.

“This sets a dangerous precedent.”

UPI has contacted the Hague-based court for comment.

The sanctions, which freeze all property of those designated, come under an authority given to the secretary of state by an executive order Trump signed in the presence of Netanyahu at the White House in February 2025, during his third week back in office.

Last month, Rubio announced the launch of a whole-of-government campaign to dismantle the threat the Trump administration alleges it poises to the United States. Along with increased sanctions and visa revocations of ICC personnel, the campaign includes encouraging other countries to exit the court and increased scrutiny of countries that receive U.S. assistance but do not criticize the ICC, as well as nations under the so-called U.S. security umbrella are also being urged to reject the ICC’s authority to prosecute U.S. officials and service members.

“The ICC has become a kangaroo court that cloaks its abuse of power in language of international law while undermining the very principles of justice,” said Netanyahu, whom the ICC has accused of using starvation as a weapon of war and crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution.

“I commend Secretary of State Marco Rubio for leading the Trump administration’s determined efforts against the ICC’s illegitimate overreach, and for making clear that the corrupt officials who lead the ICC will face consequences,” he added in the statement.

The court described Trump’s executive order in February as an unprecedented attack that undermines its ability to administer justice and a threat to international law that protects millions of victims.

Following the announcement Tuesday, the Netherlands came to the court’s defense while international human rights organizations chastised the United States.

“International courts and tribunals must be able to freely carry out their mandates,” Foreign Affairs Minister Tom Berendsen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, said in a statement, saying he has invited Akane to discuss the country’s support.

“We fully support the court and its staff,” he said.

Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, said she was “alarmed” by the sanctions being imposed on judicial operators for doing their jobs.

“Sanctioning independent judges and lawyers for their work to end impunity and ensure justice for the most grave crimes is a shocking betrayal of the Nuremberg promise and a violation of the human rights guarantee of fair trial and access to justice,” she said in a statement.

Erika Guevara Rosas, senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns at Amnesty International, rebuked the punitive action as a “reprehensible assault” on the international justice system that was part of an intimidation campaign meant to obstruct its work.

“These sanctions are not about sovereignty. They are about shielding powerful actors from accountability and punishing those tasked with investigating and prosecuting the gravest crimes under international law,” she said.

Kenneth Roth, senior fellow at Yale University and former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that Trump was sanctioning the court “so that American and Israeli officials can commit war crimes (and worse) with impunity.”

“No one should accept this utter lawlessness,” he said.

Last week, HRW and three other human rights groups sued the Trump administration over sanctioning judges and prosecutors of the ICC.

Amid trade embargoes, asset freezes and attacks on ships as part of a naval blockade, Washington has announced a plan to enact a new wave of restrictions on Iran, targeting its economy.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last Thursday that the United States was planning to inflict more economic damage on Tehran as early as this week. The US would apply measures that have “never been seen in the history of economic isolation on a country”, Bessent said.

A day later on Friday, President Donald Trump echoed Bessent and said that Iran would be hit hard economically.

As the memorandum of understanding (MoU) expired on Monday, Trump called on Tehran to hold up the “white flag of surrender” but insisted that he was in no rush to end the war.

Since February 2025, following the start of Trump’s second term in office, Washington has sanctioned “more than 1,000 Iran-related persons, vessels, and aircraft”, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said in May.

Remaining defiant, Iran’s authorities have said they could shift to offensive operations, and are simultaneously prepared to counter a potential ground invasion.

According to Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, professor of economics of the Middle East at Philipps-Universitat Marburg in Germany, the naval blockade creates a new situation in which traditional sanctions packages are combined with the use of military force to generate a physical shortage of goods in the Iranian economy.

“This is an additional burden that raises new questions for policymakers in Tehran: Should they choose a deal whose terms are dictated by the Trump administration, or should they continue the armed conflict to break the blockade of the ports? It currently seems that Iran is leaning toward the second option,” he told Al Jazeera.

Farzanegan said that for the US to achieve its goals, namely changing the behaviour of the Iranian government, it should also “open a diplomatic exit and offer it as an option”.

If armed conflict does fully resume, he said “the costs will not be confined to the target of sanctions; the global economy will also pay a price” through continued disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and attacks across the region.

Iran emphasises MoU commitments

Meanwhile, talks have stalled in finding a way out of the war, although Iran’s negotiations have been ongoing with Oman and other mediators over a potential temporary arrangement in the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the global oil and natural gas used to flow before the war.

Iran’s parliament speaker and top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told state media on Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the US meets the conditions of the now-expired MoU.

“Let me state clearly: Until the commitments made by the United States in the memorandum of understanding, including the lifting of the blockade, the release of frozen assets, the lifting of oil sanctions, the end of threats and military operations on all fronts, and other conditions to which America agreed in the memorandum, are implemented, the strait will not be opened,” Ghalibaf said.

With tensions soaring before the war, Iran’s government delegated some authorities to border provinces to import essential goods and build up inventories.

To survive the blockade over recent months, Iran has also focused more on rerouting imports of food, consumer goods and industrial inputs through land borders with Pakistan, Turkiye and others, as well as through the Caspian Sea with Russia and Central Asia.

During the brief ceasefire period established under the MoU, the blockade was lifted for several weeks in late June and early July, enabling the rapid export of oil stored on board supertankers and giving the military time to regroup.

But Iran’s oil exports have stopped once again since the breakdown of the deal, and US and Israeli authorities have discussed disrupting Iran’s inland imports to ramp up the pressure.

The mounting pressure has only exacerbated Iran’s structural economic issues, rooted in decades of domestic corruption and mismanagement, as well as sanctions and international isolation.

For the country’s roughly 90 million people, the consequences include persistent inflation, insecure and poorly paid work, declining purchasing power and growing uncertainty about the future.

Against this backdrop, President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration this week named stabilising markets, protecting livelihoods and strengthening national resilience as its priorities for the next two years.

However, Mahdi Ghodsi, a senior economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, said Iran’s prolonged stagnation over most of the past 15 years suggested that government policy had not been aligned with those objectives.

He told Al Jazeera that to guarantee sustainable economic growth, the Islamic Republic would have to reduce confrontation with the US, the West and Israel while pursuing meaningful domestic reforms that would involve moving away from coercive social controls to restore some public trust.

“Without both external de-escalation and domestic political reform, the government may be able to slow the deterioration in living standards and market conditions, but it is unlikely to deliver durable stability, stronger livelihoods or genuine national resilience,” Ghodsi said.

Energy in the crosshairs

US media outlets have reported that Washington’s forthcoming measures against Iran could include sanctioning additional independent Chinese refineries – known as “teapots” – that buy or process Iranian crude.

OFAC has already imposed secondary sanctions on smaller China- and Hong Kong-based entities processing Iranian oil money, but it could go a major step further by following through on its threat of designating larger Chinese banks if they touch Iran-linked funds.

That move risks prompting a response from China, at a time when Washington is concerned about curtailed exports of critical minerals.

Economist Ghodsi said energy remained the most powerful source of US leverage over Iran, particularly after US and Israeli attacks damaged the country’s infrastructure.

“If the blockade persists into autumn and winter, the country risks severe supply shortages. Iran was already struggling with electricity, gas and water imbalances before this shock; further constraints would mean deeper rationing and temporary shutdowns in industry to preserve household supply,” he said.

The government has also reduced some subsidised petrol quotas for personal vehicles and has been considering raising fuel costs – after an earlier increase last December. Necessary but costly fuel imports amounting to several billion dollars per year have stopped as a result of the war and blockade.

Ghodsi said that is why the US would likely target Iran’s external energy trade, involving maritime transport, shipping services, insurance, payments and the foreign buyers and intermediaries that keep those flows operating.

“In practice, that means tighter enforcement against entities in China and elsewhere that facilitate sanctioned energy transactions, together with closer scrutiny of trans-shipment and payment routes through neighbouring countries and other trade partners,” he said.

President Trump signaled he’s prepared to let economic pressure on Iran build rather than launch fresh military strikes to force a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, even as the Islamic Republic reiterated that the conditions still aren’t in place to allow free passage through the key waterway.

“We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” Trump told Axios in an interview on Sunday, saying that a US naval blockade of the country was deepening its financial woes. “We are low-keying it.”

The president’s comments mark a shift from his repeated threats to escalate the bombing campaign against Iran and come amid lingering talks between Tehran and Oman to reopen Hormuz. Iran has said it’s nearing a deal, while laying out a list of demands for Washington to meet before shipping can resume — including the lifting of sanctions.

“As long as hostile actions continue, the conditions for ensuring the safety of this waterway are not in place,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told reporters on Monday. “Its reopening is contingent on the US ceasing its illegal actions, lifting the siege and compensating for damages.”

Brent crude rose 1% on Monday to over $84 a barrel, extending a rally of more than 5% over the previous three sessions. The contract is still down since the start of the month.

The Islamic Republic’s economy has taken a hammering from the war, with much of its industrial capacity destroyed, crude exports severely curtailed by a US blockade and central bank data showing year-on-year inflation recently reaching 77%.

The currency, meanwhile, has fallen more than 10% from its prewar level, adding to the economic pressure on Iranians. A depreciation of the rial sparked violent nationwide protests that peaked early this year, leading to a crackdown by authorities that left thousands dead. There have been no signs of the anti-government demonstrations resuming.

Iran reemphasized its determination to continue wielding control over Hormuz in the face of US opposition by naming hard-line former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohsen Rezaee to its top security post over the weekend. An advocate for full Iranian control over the waterway, he served as military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and will now head the Supreme National Security Council, which coordinates decisions on the war and negotiations to end it.

Rezaee replaces Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a fellow hard-liner who accepted a new position as political adviser to the supreme leader. The appointments were reported by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency late Sunday.

Over the weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a pact with Oman to establish a shipping route through the strait was “very close,” without providing details on the substance. He ruled out direct talks with the US for now, but said the two sides are exchanging messages through intermediaries.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas transited before the war, has become a key sticking point in the negotiations to bring a lasting end to the fighting that began when the US and Israel staged airstrikes on Iran on Feb. 28. Trump has demanded free passage for months.

Tehran’s demands for a full reopening include the US lifting its naval blockade on Iranian ports, the release of frozen assets and compensation for war damage. It has also called for a permanent end to attacks on groups it backs in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza. It’s unclear how strictly Iran will stick to the list of conditions.

Some of the demands will be difficult for the US to meet alone. In Gaza, a proposal by US-backed mediators to disarm Iran-backed Hamas and push Israeli army out of the Palestinian enclave was rejected by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday.

In Yemen, clashes between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and forces from the internationally recognized government supported by neighboring Saudi Arabia, have escalated. The Houthis claimed to have struck Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery on Sunday, while Saudi authorities reported a fire that was quickly extinguished, with no injuries.

The incident would mark at least the second blaze at the 400,000 barrel-a-day complex in a month. Satellite images in late July showed a tank fire following another claimed Houthi attack.

Sykes writes for Bloomberg.

The Russian Athletics Federation has filed a new claim with the Court of Arbitration for Sport to challenge sanctions imposed by World Athletics.

Athletes from Russia and Belarus have been banned from international competition under the world governing body since the country’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russian Athletics says the ongoing sanctions “infringe on the organisation’s rights”, adding they “prevent it from fully representing the interests of Russian athletes on an international level.”

The International Olympic Committee provisionally lifted Russia’s suspension in July, potentially allowing the country to compete at the 2028 Olympics Games in Los Angeles.

Cas, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, serves as sport’s highest arbitration body and hears disputes involving athletes, federations and governing organisations.

“The sanctions against Russian Athletics are unprecedented. No other sports federation faces such severe restrictions,” Boris Yaryshevskiy, chief executive director of Russian Athletics, said in a statement.

“They not only hinder the federation’s normal operation but also hold back the development of athletics in Russia, particularly among young athletes, preventing us from properly representing our sport in the international arena.

“That is why we will consistently defend our rights, pursue the lifting of the sanctions through the courts, and continue our work in this direction. We are already preparing our next steps to restore justice.”

Russian Athletics lodged a separate appeal on 9 July challenging a decision by the World Athletics Council – the main rule-making and executive body of World Athletics – to extend the ban on Russian athletes from international events.

Other sporting federations, including World Gymnastics, World Aquatics and World Boxing, have this year eased restrictions on Russian athletes competing.

Some Russian and Belarusian athletes competed as neutrals at both the 2024 Paris Games and this year’s Winter Olympics in Milan.

The US Senate approved its strongest move against Russia under Trump, advancing sanctions that could impose tariffs on major buyers including India and China.

Aug. 7 (UPI) — The Trump administration on Friday sanctioned a multinational network of crypto exchanges that authorities say Iran has been using to launder billions of dollars to fund its military.

The sanctions target United Arab Emirates-based Shelbit Exchange, which authorities say has been laundering money by running it through a large gambling website on behalf of the Iranian government.

The move comes as retaliation for Iranian attacks again commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz this week, State Department officials said.

Treasury officials said Iran uses a sprawling network of corporate entities to obscure the origin of the funds and launder money to benefit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“The Iranian regime’s reliance on digital assets and shadow banking networks is further evidence that Economic Fury is working,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a statement, referencing the government’s operations to target Iran’s funding network.

The executive who runs the operations, Iran-born expatriate Siavash Kayvanpour, has also been sanctioned.

Kayvanpour’s network of crypto exchanges allegedly includes operations in the Republic of Georgia and Poland, as well as other outfits in the UAE.

The U.S. is also sanctioning Aban Tether, an Iran-based crypto exchange, for processing Iranian assets through Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex.

“We will continue to increase the economic pressure,” Bessent said in a statement. “Whether in dollars, rials, or crypto, Treasury will hunt down and dismantle the illicit financial networks that keep the regime afloat.”

On Friday, the Senate also passed a bill sanctioning Iran, targeting its energy and weapons manufacturing industries.

Aug. 6 (UPI) — China has issued retaliatory sanctions against seven U.S. companies and organizations it accused of aiding U.S. punitive measures targeting Beijing, the latest tit-for-tat move between the world’s two largest economic powers, issued weeks before Chinese leader Xi Jinping‘s September visit to Washington.

Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce issued the sanctions in separate orders Wednesday, effectively imposing a China-wide ban on commercial and institutional dealings with the seven entities.

Applied DNA Sciences Inc. Stratum Reservoir LLC, Altana Technologies Inc., Responsible Business Alliance, Verite Group Inc, and Human Rights in China were blacklisted for assisting and supporting “the United States’ illegal sanctions concerning Xinjiang,” the ministry said in a statement.

Compliance Testing LLC was hit for assisting and supporting U.S. Federal Communications Commission actions “harming China’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” the ministry said in a second statement.

China imposed the ban against the five U.S. companies and one nongovernmental organization less than a week after the United States added 43 companies to its Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, effectively banning the import of their products on thee presumption they were made using the forced labor of Uyghurs in northwestern Xinjiang region.

The U.S. State Department declared China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority group a genocide in 2021, alleging that Beijing has arbitrarily imprisoned at least 1 million of them. China has been credibly accused of subjecting Uyghurs to forced sterilization, forced labor and forced detention, as well as imposing draconian restrictions on their freedom of religion, expression and movement. Several other governments, as well as legal and civil independent bodies, have also accused China of genocide.

China vehemently rejects the accusations, claiming the camps are for eduction and training.

A Commerce Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday that “China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposes” the sanctioning of the 43 companies.

The statement announcing the retaliatory measures said the U.S. move seriously violated international law, the basic norms governing international relations and an infringed upon its sovereignty, security and development interests.

It was unclear exactly how the five companies and one nongovernmental organization were involved, but China’s ministry said “their conduct is egregious.”

Human Rights in China, an NGO founded in 1989, condemned being sanctioned by China, calling it “a blatant act of retaliation against entities working to ensure that international trade and commerce are not tainted by forced labor and other serious human rights abuses.”

“It is another attempt by the Chinese government to intimidate and silence organizations that advocate for universal human rights and corporate accountability,” it said in a statement.

“While we were surprised to find HRIC included alongside organizations we were previously unfamiliar with, we regard this designation as a badge of honor.”

The ministry blacklisted Compliance Testing after the FCC on July 28 banned foreign-made humanoid robots and power inverters, a move that some said specifically targeted China. It also came amid reports that the Trump administration was drafting a ban on Chinese data center components.

Compliance Testing’s alleged involvement was not clear, but China’s Commerce Ministry alleged that it was involved in the FCC’s measures “seriously infringing upon the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies.”

In response to reports concerning the drafting of the new Chinese electronics ban, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said, “China opposes the U.S. overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to go after Chinese businesses.”

“Protectionism will not make the U.S. more competitive. The U.S. move seriously disrupts normal trade and economic exchanges between Chinese and U.S. businesses and consumers or anyone else for that matter,” he said in a statement. “China will continue firmly protecting our businesses’ legitimate and lawful rights and interests.”

The countermeasures come weeks before Xi is expected to visit Washington on Sept. 24 for talks with Trump on artificial intelligence, technological competition and global economic relations.

A sweeping package of new Russian sanctions has cleared its first hurdle in the United States Congress, and, if passed, could trigger huge tariffs for countries such as India and China which continue to buy oil from Moscow.

The bill, which was advanced in the US Senate this week, has been named for the late Lindsey Graham, whose funeral was attended by world leaders including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the week.

Here’s what we know:

What happened in the Senate?

The “Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026” was advanced overwhelmingly by the Senate this week in a vote of 86 to 12, meaning it can now proceed to the House of Representatives for further deliberation.

Named for the late Senator Graham, a staunch Ukraine supporter who died unexpectedly this month, the bill moved forward with the support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was in Washington to attend Graham’s funeral and watched the proceedings from the gallery.

“It was an honour to be present as the votes were counted – 86 senators supported the bill,” he wrote on X afterwards. “This is the first step towards implementing Lindsey [Graham]’s plans, and certainly a step towards peace. It is important that this tool works.”

After clearing the Senate, there will be a delay before the bill can move forward to the House, which is now in summer recess.

On Wednesday this week, US President Donald Trump ordered lawmakers to amend the bill to include tariffs covering Iran as well. This will likely delay the bill further if it deters Democrats from supporting it, analysts said.

David Smith, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre, told Al Jazeera: “One of the things they’re worried about is how the tariff power in relation to Iran is going to be expanded. They’re going to be ok with tariff powers on Russia but they’re worried about tariff power on countries buying Iranian oil, which means China. I think there are going to be a lot of Democrats that are going to say these powers should be limited to sanctions and not tariffs.”

Without the Iran addition, he said he would have expected the bill to pass once the House resumes given strong Democratic support for Ukraine.

“Democrats have been genuinely worried about the Trump administration abandoning Ukraine. Something like this, which is ramping the pressure up on Russia so much, I just think there will be a large critical mass of Democrats who will vote for this,” he said.

What’s in the bill?

The bill makes use of sanctions and tariffs to target Russia and cut off the economic pipeline that has kept the Ukraine war going.

Major provisions include new sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as on more than 20 top officials and companies which work with the Russian defence industry. It also targets Russia’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers and the network it uses to evade international sanctions on its energy exports.

The bill gives the president authority to impose sanctions by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Under it, he would be able to apply tariffs of up to 100 percent on exports to the US from the top five purchasers of Russian energy, military equipment or countries facilitating Russian sanctions evasion.

Tariffs of up to 500 percent can also be applied to Russian imports directly into the US. The US imported $3.8bn in goods from Russia in 2025.

Which countries are likely to be targeted?

China, India and Türkiye are potential targets of the bill, as they are among the largest buyers of Russian energy, according to data compiled by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

China has historically responded to Trump’s tariffs with tariffs of its own on US exports. Even Pay, a director at the Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, told Al Jazeera that the US may wait to impose tariffs as Trump is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.

Trump would still welcome the option, she said, after the Supreme Court struck down many of his tariffs in February.

“If passed and signed into law [which is still a big if at this point], the legislation would give Trump something he’s wanted for a while, namely, the legislature’s permission to impose high tariffs on China, alongside the small handful of other countries that import Russian oil,” Pay told Al Jazeera.

India is in a tricky position as its attempts to diversify away from Russian energy were disrupted by the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, according to Maia Nikoladze, a deputy director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council.

Due to the disruptions, it has also applied for and received US sanction waivers to continue buying Russian oil in the interim, Nikoladze wrote in a report this week, and it is expected to do the same in the future.

“India will face a trade-off between maintaining energy security and managing the risk of US tariffs, potentially prompting it to again seek waivers and exemptions,” Nikoladze said.

What do critics say about the bill?

Critics like Senator Maggie Hassan say the bill gives Trump too much power to impose tariffs while also potentially harming both the US taxpayer and allied countries.

Turkiye, for example, buys Russian energy but it is also a US ally and NATO member, while “major non-NATO ally” Brazil and “major security cooperation partner” Singapore both buy Russian oil products, according to CREA.

In a post on X, Hassan wrote that while she supports sanctioning Russia, she does “not think tariffs, which are paid for by American businesses and consumers, will help Ukraine win”.

The bill is also opposed by lobby groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce, which also says the true cost will be passed on to US businesses and consumers, as with past tariffs.

While many of Trump’s tariffs have already been struck down by the Supreme Court, the Russia tariffs could have more staying power because they would be imposed on a stronger legal basis, according to Smith.

That’s because it is new legislation which has been crafted using the powers of the IEEPA.

“Previously what Trump has done is to go back to old pieces of legislation and invoke from those his power to use tariffs in ways they haven’t been used before and in ways courts have subsequently found less lawful, whereas this looks like new legislation that is going to lawfully expand his tariff authority,” he told Al Jazeera.

Caracas, July 17, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – A group of US Congress members addressed a letter to President Donald Trump advocating an immediate removal of sanctions against Venezuela in the wake of its recent double earthquake.

“These economic restrictions are severely hampering urgent relief efforts, and will continue to threaten Venezuela’s recovery and long-term reconstruction if allowed to remain in place,” the text read.

The missive was signed by 14 representatives from the Democratic Party, including Jesús García, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They cited the United Nations estimates of earthquake damage as high as US $37 billion, roughly a third of Venezuela’s current GDP.

“The existing sanctions regime on Venezuela has far-reaching indiscriminate effects,” the legislators continued. “The removal of sanctions will allow state institutions to more effectively coordinate and deliver emergency healthcare, shelter and food.”

The letter was backed by a number of NGOs, including Just Foreign Policy, Demand Progress, and Peace Action.

Venezuela was rocked by near-simultaneous 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes on June 24 that caused widespread destruction in north-central regions. The coastal state of La Guaira was the worst hit, with hundreds of collapsed buildings. The latest official death count stands at nearly 5000.

Since 2017, Washington has levied wide-reaching sanctions against Venezuela, targeting key sectors such as banking, mining, trade, and especially the oil industry. Coercive measures against Venezuela’s all-important energy sector have caused revenue losses estimated at more than US $20 billion per year. The sanctions regime imposed during Trump’s first administration was largely kept in place by the Joe Biden White House.

Venezuela’s GDP contracted by three-quarters between 2014 and 2020, with 88 percent of the contraction taking place under the US economic blockade. In recent days, hundreds of scholars have also demanded the lifting of coercive measures against Venezuela.

Despite pledges of assistance following the devastating tremors, the Trump White House has not entertained any sanctions relief, issuing only a four-month license allowing earthquake relief-related transactions.

However, the US representatives called the measure “entirely insufficient” due to their limited scope and overcompliance from financial institutions.

They urged the Trump administration to “do everything to facilitate Venezuela’s access to its frozen assets abroad.” Venezuelan leaders have called on Washington and its allies to lift sanctions and unfreeze assets for reconstruction efforts. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez penned a letter to UK King Charles III requesting the release of around US $4.5 billion in Venezuelan gold held by the Bank of England.

The US and European allies are estimated to hold over $10 billion in other assets, including frozen bank accounts and roughly $5 billion in IMF-issued Special Drawing Rights (SDR). In contrast, US offers of post-earthquake humanitarian aid have only totaled $386 million.

Since the January 3 military strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has seized control of Venezuelan export revenues, particularly from oil sales. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed the acting Rodríguez administration must submit a “budget request” before accessing its own funds. 

Trump has repeatedly stated that the US has recouped the costs of the January 3 operation “many times over” from its undisclosed cut taken from Venezuelan oil proceeds. Economist Francisco Rodríguez has found a significant delay in Washington’s disbursement of Venezuelan funds.

The Trump administration also took advantage of the June 24 natural disaster to significantly expand its military footprint in the Caribbean nation. The Southern Command confirmed the presence of more than 900 servicemen on Venezuelan territory by the end of June.

US forces have taken over air traffic coordination, communications, and security operations at the Simón Bolívar International Airport, while two US warships have established a “command-and-control node” at La Guaira port.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.

Caracas, July 13, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government has approved a new set of oil industry regulations that prioritize the “economic and financial viability” of private sector investment.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez signed the statute on Wednesday, July 8, and it was published in the National Gazette. Rodríguez hailed the directive a “historic step” that will “transform our energy reserves into development.”

“These norms establish clear rules, greater legal certainty, and a favorable environment for the cooperation between the [Venezuelan] state and national and foreign capital,” the acting president said.

Western oil executives and Trump officials have aggressively lobbied to tailor the new rules to their interests after seeing preliminary drafts. White House energy advisor Jarrod Agen stated that he had contact with Rodríguez and her team “multiple times a day” to offer input on the regulations and contract models.

The 122-article text establishes the framework for the implementation of the reformed Hydrocarbon Law approved by the Venezuelan National Assembly in late January. The legislative overhaul replaced the 2001 Hydrocarbon Law approved by former President Hugo Chávez and subsequent decrees that established a leading role for the Venezuelan state in the energy sector.

Under the new law, private sector companies can take over oilfield operations and sales as minority joint venture partners, or via concession-type agreements.

The legislation also slashed royalties and fiscal contributions. The former was capped at 30 percent, and a former extraction tax was replaced by an “integrated hydrocarbon tax” with a 15 percent maximum.

However, the new statute defines a “combined contribution” of royalties and the integrated tax ranging from 20 percent for undeveloped greenfields to 35 percent for currently active brownfields, meaning an effective 10 percent further reduction from the 45 percent maximum defined under the law.

Companies are eligible for additional 5 percent discounts in their combined contribution if they run offshore operations or if their business plans include “building or amplifying crude transformation, upgrading, or refining plants.”

Income tax was lowered from 50 to 34 percent for greenfields under the 2026 legislation. But the regulations establish that companies can request further reductions to their royalty, integrated tax, and income tax contributions if necessary to attain “economic equilibrium.” The decisions will be taken by the Venezuelan executive on a case-by-case basis without any mandatory oversight from the National Assembly.

The reformed energy law allowed legal disputes to be settled by international arbitration bodies, with Venezuelan officials promising  “legal certainty” to investors. The new norms permit arbitration re via “alternative mechanisms,” with analysts suggesting that the vague language aims to avoid any clashes with US sanctions.

The directive also set an obligation to capture “associated gas” in oil extraction operations, which can be used for reinjection or transformed into cooking gas. Historically, it has been mostly flared. Oilfield operators are likewise mandated to secure their electricity supply. The Venezuelan National Assembly is presently working on reforms to open electricity generation, transmission, distribution, and commercialization to the private sector.

The enacted framework goes on to establish environmental responsibilities, oversight mechanisms, and penalties for non-compliance. State oil company PDVSA is not mentioned at all in the text.

Venezuelan oil expert Blas Regnault told Venezuelanalysis that the new norms risk turning the oil sector into an “enclave.”

“The regulations organize oil activity but do not guarantee that it will be integrated into the national economy,” he explained. Regnault warned that empowering corporations to negotiate royalties on an individual case-by-case basis “turns a sovereign right into a flexible variable in a contractual regime” in what is an “unusual” practice for oil-producing nations.

“Royalties are not taxes. They represent the sovereign right of the owner of the resource, and thus should be universally established, not negotiated project by project,” he underscored.

The pro-business opening of Venezuela’s most important industry has seen major Western corporations, including Chevron, Shell, and BP, ink agreements or memoranda of understanding with the acting Rodríguez administration to develop new projects or establish more favorable conditions in existing ones.

For its part, the Trump administration has kept in place sanctions against the Venezuelan oil industry, though it has issued a number of licenses allowing US and Western enterprises to enter into agreements with Caracas. However, the waivers mandate that all royalty, tax, and dividend payments be deposited in a US Treasury-run account, while also blocking transactions with firms from China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

The maintenance of US sanctions has slowed new investment, while the Trump administration has so far returned only a fraction of Venezuelan export revenues to Caracas. 

The dire economic situation is indexed in persistent inflation and stagnating oil production. Venezuela’s crude output plateaued after four consecutive months of growth, with June’s 1.070 million barrel-per-day (bpd) output virtually unchanged from May, according to OPEC secondary sources. The figure remains the highest since early 2019.

For its part, PDVSA reported 1.187 million bpd in June, up from 1,179 million bpd in May. Direct and secondary measurements have historically differed over disagreements on the inclusion of condensates and natural gas liquids.

The South American country’s main crude extraction areas, in the eastern and western regions, were largely unaffected by June 24’s double earthquake, with no major disruptions to operations reported.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.t issued a number of licenses allowing US and Western enterprises to enter into agreements with Caracas. However, the waivers mandate that all royalty, tax, and dividend payments be deposited in a US Treasury-run account, while also blocking transactions with firms from China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

Venezuela’s oil production has stagnated after four consecutive months of growth, with June’s 1.070 million barrel-per-day (bpd) output virtually unchanged from May, according to OPEC secondary sources. The figure remains the highest since early 2019.

For its part, PDVSA reported 1.187 million bpd in June, up from 1,179 million bpd in May. Direct and secondary measurements have historically differed over disagreements on the inclusion of condensates and natural gas liquids.

The South American country’s main crude extraction areas, in the eastern and western regions, were largely unaffected by June 24’s double earthquake, with no major disruptions to operations reported.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.

Damascus, Syria – For many Syrians, the decades of rule by the al-Assad family – Hafez al-Assad from 1971 to 2000, then his son Bashar from 2000 to 2024 – were filled with oppression from the state and eventually more than a decade of civil war.

But one of the most important legacies has been an economic one – the result of the sanctions imposed by a number of countries, led by the United States, that effectively froze Syria out of the international economic system.

Despite the fall of Bashar al-Assad after rebel groups defeated him in December 2024, many of the sanctions, including a “state sponsor of terrorism” designation, have remained.

The designation has impeded Syria’s rejoining of the international community, while sanctions have impacted Syrians. Sending money back home from abroad often requires routing transfers through neighbouring countries, such as Lebanon or Turkiye, while access to some websites and online services, including Netflix and Slack, may require a virtual private network.

But there has been a positive reaction to the announcement on Wednesday by US President Donald Trump that his administration will remove Syria from the state sponsor of terrorism list.

The lifting of previous US sanctions, such as those related to the Caesar Act, has not transformed the Syrian economy, but it is hoped that those linked to the “state sponsor of terrorism” listing will allow the country to finally flourish.

“God willing, it will improve things,” said Ihab, a pastry shop owner in central Damascus.

Reintegration

US sanctions are thought to have been a huge barrier to foreign investors since the rule of Bashar al-Assad.

The World Bank said that since 2011, sanctions have led to a major collapse in exports and an increase in the trade deficit.

After the fall of the al-Assad government, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s administration has identified the removal of all international and US sanctions as the key to reinvigorating the economy.

Al-Sharaa, the former head of the al-Qaeda-aligned Nusra Front, was himself sanctioned by the United Nations and was wanted as a “terrorist” by the US. But he has made efforts to shed those associations and build trust internationally, including by pledging to play a role in the fight against ISIL (ISIS).

His efforts have largely been successful, with the European Union and the US removing many of the sanctions on Syria and on al-Sharaa himself. The sanctions linked to the US’s “state sponsor of terrorism” list are among the few to remain.

The first “state sponsor of terrorism” designation on Syria was during Hafez al-Assad’s rule in 1979, due to the government’s support for Palestinian armed groups.

Additional sanctions were imposed on the state and individuals associated with the al-Assad regime, due to their systematic use of torture and chemical weapons.

Some rebel groups were also sanctioned due to their links to al-Qaeda and other banned organisations.

Al-Sharaa ended al-Nusra Front’s affiliation with al-Qaeda in 2016 and effectively eschewed the group’s ideology.

He also moved to establish a broader, national armed coalition dedicated to fighting the Assad government, later becoming Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

In May 2025, around the time Trump met al-Sharaa in Riyadh, the US president promised to remove many of the sanctions on the Syrian government. But the expected removal from the “state sponsor of terrorism” list will be particularly welcome as it gets rid of one of the main barriers for international banks and companies.

“This is extremely significant because it’s the last major impediment to international economic and political engagement with Syria and with the al-Sharaa administration, and in terms of reintegrating Syria back into the international order and indeed the international economic and political system,” Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer on security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.

Struggling economy

However, he is careful to add that the removal of the designation does not mean a flood of investment will instantly start pouring into Syria.

“This is a big hurdle that’s been overcome, but it doesn’t mean that there’s no more hurdles to investment or engagement with Syria.”

He added that international actors may be concerned about the government’s control and ability to confront remnants from the al-Assad regime, a potential ISIL (ISIS) comeback, bureaucratic impediments and corruption.

Some Syrians were also sceptical that the designation change would lead to instant results.

“This needs a long breath,” said a minimarket owner in Damascus, who refused to give his name. “You can’t sleep and wake up and expect change.”

He referred to ongoing economic problems and rising costs, as well as a recent fuel shortage.

“There’s no economy, and there’s no investment.”

Other Syrians were more hopeful that the economy, and other aspects of daily life, would improve. Still, there is a recognition that a little more patience is needed.

For some, that patience has worn out, such as the minimarket owner. Others, however, are biding their time.

At a juice stall in central Damascus, Zaher counted money received from a customer.

“I’m on the street with my cart and nobody is bothering me,” he said. “Electricity is getting better, but nothing gets better after just one day.”

“It took God Almighty six days to create Earth,” the 50-year-old said. “These things take time.”