Iran is perhaps the worst country on the planet, except possibly North Korea. They are, in addition to being the number one state sponsor of Islamic terror, a brutally repressive regime. On Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced a financial crackdown on Iran's "Shadow Fleet" of people and tankers that are engaged in selling Iranian oil in violation of international sanctions.
This is known as "hitting them in their wallets."
Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and the U.S. Department of State are imposing sanctions on over 30 persons and vessels in multiple jurisdictions for their role in brokering the sale and transportation of Iranian petroleum-related products. Among those sanctioned today are oil brokers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Hong Kong, tanker operators and mangers in India and People’s Republic of China (PRC), the head of Iran’s National Iranian Oil Company, and the Iranian Oil Terminals Company, whose operations help finance Iran’s destabilizing activities. The vessels sanctioned today are responsible for shipping tens of millions of barrels of crude oil valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Iran continues to rely on a shadowy network of vessels, shippers, and brokers to facilitate its oil sales and fund its destabilizing activities,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “The United States will use all our available tools to target all aspects of Iran’s oil supply chain, and anyone who deals in Iranian oil exposes themselves to significant sanctions risk.”
Anything we can do to damage Iran financially is worth doing, every day and twice on Sunday. Look at anything bad happening in the Middle East, look at any overt or covert act of Islamic terrorism, ranging from Houthi rebels to Hezbollah and Hamas, and somewhere you'll find Iran's fingerprints. This a regime that is literally willing to impoverish their own country, their own people, to spread terror around the globe.
This action is in response to two executive orders from President Trump.
Today’s action is being taken pursuant to Executive Orders 13902 and 13846, which target Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical sectors, and marks the second round of sanctions targeting Iranian oil sales since the President issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 2 on February 4, 2025, ordering a campaign of maximum pressure on Iran and to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero.
President Trump, remember, has spoken on many occasions - most recently at CPAC 2025 - of how Iran was broke during his first term. That's an unalloyed good thing; keeping Iran broke is good for the entire world.
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Iran should, by rights, be a prosperous country. They have mineral resources, and if they would remove the yokes from their people's necks, they would have great human resources. The Shah was far from perfect, but under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran was taking steps into the modern world. That progress was reversed in 1979, when the mullahs took over and Iran became a terror state, not only on the world stage but internally.
It's not yet clear whether financial sanctions alone can bring Iran's mullahs down. Militarily, even as debilitated as they are, the Islamic Republic would be a tough nut to crack. That makes draining their cash coffers an even better idea.