The US Treasury Department is preparing to unveil weekly targeting Iran, with an initial focus on global banks. This move follows the first US military strikes in weeks on Iranian rocket launchers near the Strait of Hormuz.
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⏳ Time Machine
How today’s news fits into the bigger picture
2015
The JCPOA Agreement
World powers signed the nuclear deal with Iran, lifting major banking and oil sanctions and integrating Iranian banks back into the SWIFT network.
2018
Maximum Pressure Campaign
The US unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal, re-imposing primary and that dropped Iran's oil exports from 2.5 million barrels per day to under 500,000.
March 2024
Tightening the Noose
The US Treasury blacklisted a network of shadow-banking entities in the UAE and Turkey that processed over $5 billion in oil revenues for Tehran.
Today
The US Treasury Department announces weekly secondary sanctions targeting global banks that facilitate trade with Iran.
What happens next?
The first wave of specific foreign banks blacklisted under the weekly schedule will be published on Friday.
The US government has dramatically escalated its economic and military campaign against Iran. Following military strikes by US forces on Iranian rocket launchers on the critical Strait of Hormuz shipping lane, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a shift to a weekly secondary sanctions schedule. The primary targets of this campaign will be international banks that facilitate trade with Tehran. Secondary sanctions are highly aggressive policy tools because they penalize non-US entities, forcing global banks to cut all ties with Iran or risk being entirely locked out of the trillion-dollar US financial system. This development poses a massive compliance headache for global financial institutions, particularly in Europe and Asia, which must audit their transaction systems weekly to ensure absolute isolation from Iranian entities.
💭 If you're wondering…
Banks utilize advanced automated screening software that constantly scans transaction details, sender names, and routing codes against updated international blacklists like the US OFAC list.
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