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A top Iranian official has warned that any country joining the US economic pressure campaign against Iran will be considered an enemy and hit with what he called a seismic response.
Some shit you should know before you dig in: Last week, President Trump and other top US officials signaled that major new sanctions were coming against Iran, with Trump calling it “the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country” and promising “tremendous economic consequences” for anyone giving Iran a lifeline. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has called it “the toughest sanctions in history,” is set to lay out the details Monday at 2 PM Eastern. Iran’s biggest trading partners are China, Iraq, India, Turkey, and Pakistan. These countries have continued to trade with Iran throughout the war despite threats from Trump.
What’s going on now: Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chief Mohsen Rezaei, a hardliner recently installed in the role, went on IRIB state television with the threat. “Any country that takes part in imposing economic restrictions on us will be regarded as an enemy,” he said. “If [President Trump] wants to do something, we will retaliate in a seismic manner.” He walked through how that would play out, saying Iran would first talk to those countries and ask them to step away from the US, then strike their interests if they refused.
He also pointed to the one lever Iran has left. Rezaei said that if the sanctions campaign moves forward, Iran will not let a single drop of oil out of the Persian Gulf, through Hormuz or otherwise, cutting off the alternative shipping routes its neighbors rely on (this could be a nightmare for Saudi Arabia, which uses pipelines to push its oil through to the Red Sea).
He went further, noting that so far, Iran has hit only American military bases. “The United States has oil and economic companies around Iran and elsewhere, and we will strike them,” he said.
This all comes as Bessent has framed the coming package as a loyalty test. “This is going to be the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world. And we are going to them and saying you are either with us or against us,” he said, adding that the US intends to “squash the economy of this murderous regime.” He has leaned on China specifically, which takes in over 80% of the oil Iran moves by sea.
So far, China has signaled it has no intention of cooperating with US demands. In a statement, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that “sanctions and pressure will not help resolve the issue,” and pushed for every side involved to act responsibly and settle things through politics and diplomacy.
