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Washington sanctions regime reaches its breaking point

By Samuel Geddes | Al Mayadeen | September 1, 2026

Trump’s desperate bid to crush Iran’s economy without military escalation places the US’ sanctions regime against Iran, Russia, China and all its other adversaries at existential risk.

So far, 2026 has been the most sobering year in living memory for the American self-image. Having at long last achieved the war against Tehran that has been sought since 1979, the Washington establishment is confronted not with the Islamic Republic’s collapse but its solidification.

Far from regaining its unquestioned dominion over the Persian Gulf region, it must now accept perpetual management by Tehran of the most critical waterway on Earth, or else face a global economic calamity. Instead of weakening Iranian leverage, the US-Israeli aggression has magnified it exponentially, needlessly handing it a level of global power and influence undreamt of in the more than five centuries of the Western world’s dominance.

As the administration flails ahead of the midterms and the imminent exhaustion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which cushioned the true magnitude of the energy shock, it is soon to witness yet another previously unchallenged instrument of its power vaporize alongside its dwindling munitions stocks. That instrument is its economic sanctions policy.

This week ushered in the so-called “Operation Economic Outcast”, through which Washington hopes to throttle every avenue of economic contact between Iran and the outside world. Announced by the hapless Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who, along with his bemusement at the rising price of oil in response to the US’ actions, is also contending with the failure of the naval blockade of Iran’s southern coast, which has still not caused either Tehran’s collapse or capitulation. By switching back to tactics of blunt economic coercion, the Trump administration signaled an unprecedented escalation in the intensity of its secondary sanctions policy, namely that any company or state engaging in economic activity of any kind with Iran will share in its exclusion from the economic and financial system underpinned by the US dollar.

This threat, in addition to being levelled against regional and small-to-medium-sized economic partners of the Islamic Republic, is also explicitly aimed at China and Russia. In its desperation to force Iranian submission, Washington is escalating the war to the level of global economic blackmail, including against its only near-peer economy and potential challenger. Even Bessent, by his own admission, acknowledged that actual imposition of such sanctions would “blow up” the global financial system.

In addition to threatening every state that engages in any way with the Iranian economy, the Trump administration has, at “Israel’s” encouragement, also taken to the idea of imposing a total land blockade as well. This would require strong-arming systemically important regional actors such as Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan into sacrificing their own natural economic ties with their neighbor, to achieve the objectives of the very foreign power that has thrown their economic present and future into chaos.

Before the so-called “Economic D-Day” was even launched, Beijing called Trump and Bessent’s bluffs, assuring that any US sanctions against entities facilitating Chinese-Iranian exchange would trigger “all necessary measures” in response. The effects of increasing Chinese-US decoupling, the accumulating poison of the US tariff war against the rest of the world and now the apparent collapse of the North American economic bloc (formerly NAFTA), leave Washington in no position to incur the true costs of such retaliation, let alone the simultaneous countersanctions from the likes of Russia, Turkey, India, Pakistan and any other country that depends more on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz than on trade with the US.

Neither are the Iranians anywhere near as bereft of economic weapons of their own, certainly not in comparison to the first Trump administration’s economic strangulation. Tehran has correctly greeted the US economic campaign as the desperate gamble that it is- and met it with an ultimatum of its own: that any participating state in this economic siege will be treated as an enemy.

Trump may believe that the US’ relative lesser exposure to the Strait gives him some sort of leverage. In fact, for the majority of states in the world whose economies run in whole or part due to the 20 percent of oil and natural gas, 30 percent of industrial helium, 40 percent of sulfur and 50 percent of fertilizer inputs that annually transit Hormuz, this reality gives them far more reason to accommodate the Islamic Republic than to join Washington and Tel-Aviv’s attempts to bring it to its knees.

This stunning level of economic hubris, if acted upon, will either fail and demonstrate the economic limits of US power along with those of its military, or it will succeed and split the globe into separate economic world-systems. Like almost every gambit of this unhinged presidency, success would be more damaging than failure. Washington will have so antagonized even its closest partners that whatever remains of the “global economy” centered around the Dollar will be very much less than “global” in its scope, compared to the parallel world economy its hostility will have birthed through sheer obstinate stupidity.

September 1, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Washington sanctions regime reaches its breaking point

Economy will withstand US sanctions, Iran Central Bank governor says

Al Mayadeen| September 1, 2026

Claims suggesting Iran is heading toward an economic collapse are unfounded, said the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Abdolnaser Hemmati, on Tuesday, stressing that the country’s economic system continues to operate robustly despite new sanctions imposed by its adversaries every week.

Hemmati said Iran’s collection of its foreign-currency receivables remains ongoing and that its resources continue to flow, alongside domestic reserves. He added that Iran has financial resources whose details cannot be disclosed, noting that the Central Bank is fully prepared to inject $2 billion in foreign currency into the market.

In a message addressed to US President Donald Trump, Hemmati said, “I say to Trump: Iran has enough foreign-currency reserves”.

Regarding developments in the foreign-exchange market, the Central Bank governor said conditions in the currency market would stabilize in the coming period, attributing the recent rise in exchange rates more to psychological warfare than to underlying economic factors.

US economic pressure fails

This comes after the United States announced “Operation Economic Outcast” earlier this week as part of its campaign to isolate Iran economically. The US Treasury has described the initiative as an effort to target Iran’s financial links and pressure foreign entities conducting business with Tehran.

The sanctions, like previous packages aimed at choking Iran economically, have evidently failed. Chinese refiners are still importing about 1.2 million barrels of Iranian oil a day this year, a figure barely below last year’s pace.

Real volumes could be higher, since ships carrying Iranian crude have gotten better at avoiding detection. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) revealed that Iranian commercial and financial activity continues across Dubai despite Washington’s push to sharply restrict Tehran’s access to regional markets and financial networks.

According to the newspaper, Iranian banks, airlines, restaurants, and businesses remain active in the United Arab Emirates.

At one Bank Melli branch in Dubai’s old city, around a dozen tellers were continuing to serve Farsi-speaking customers, according to the report. Employees said they had received no instructions ordering the branch to cease operations. “We put our trust in God on what happens next,” an Iranian bank employee said.

September 1, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on Economy will withstand US sanctions, Iran Central Bank governor says

The exodus Israel cannot afford

New data: Israelis heading for the exits include doctors, engineers, tech workers, and high-income taxpayers on whom the occupation’s war economy depends.

By Kamran Yeganegi | The Cradle | August 31, 2026

In the early hours of 7 October 2023, an Israeli journalist identified only as Asaf booked flights for himself, his wife, and their two daughters. The next day, carrying only hand luggage, the family boarded a flight to Berlin. What began as an emergency exit became permanent. Two years later, they had not returned.

Asaf told +972 Magazine that he already believed Israel’s education and healthcare systems were deteriorating. But that morning destroyed his remaining confidence in the state and its military: “By the afternoon of 7 October, we understood that even this wasn’t true.”

His story reflects a larger structural trend. Israel is disproportionately losing the doctors who staff its hospitals, the engineers who sustain its technology sector, the academics who reproduce its scientific capabilities, and the taxpayers who finance its wars.

The numbers Israel struggles to define

Emigration cuts against the Zionist claim that Israel offers Jews security and permanence. Hebrew itself reflects the tension: immigration is aliyah, or “ascent,” while emigration is yerida – “descent.”

An August 2026 Tel Aviv University study, based on Central Bureau of Statistics data, found that 90,922 Israeli citizens remained abroad for at least three consecutive months in 2025, following 91,499 in 2024 and 86,509 in 2023. In total, 268,509 Israelis left for at least three months between 2023 and 2025 – 47 percent more than during 2013–2015.

The three-month measure is not equivalent to permanent migration. But the researchers found a correlation of 0.96 between three-month departures and remaining abroad for at least one year. On that basis, they estimated that 45,000–50,000 Israelis became long-term emigrants in 2025 alone.

Citing official and research data, +972 Magazine put the long-term total above 150,000 over two years and suggested it may have surpassed 200,000 since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government was formed.

Israel’s National Insurance Institute reported 35,625 residency terminations in 2025; 6,651 were requested voluntarily. This administrative measure is neither a count of citizenship loss nor a clean measure of permanent emigration, but it shows that thousands were formally loosening their ties to the state.

Follow the taxpayers

The Israeli Tax Authority has documented a deeper demographic and fiscal shift. Until 2019, emigrants earned approximately the national average. By 2024, their average pre-departure income had reached around 200,000 shekels – 50 percent above the national average and 60 percent higher in real terms than before the pandemic.

As the study’s authors put it: “The pace of emigration among the strong and affluent strata increased, while among the weaker strata it remained almost unchanged.”

According to the Hebrew-language economic daily Calcalist, the departure rate among Israel’s highest income decile rose from approximately 0.3 percent in 2015–2019 to more than 0.5 percent in 2023–2024 – an increase of around 80 percent. That decile accounted for 67 percent of emigrants’ combined income and 86 percent of the income tax they had paid before leaving.

Compared with the 2015–2019 period, the number of people leaving high-tech increased by approximately 150 percent in 2023–2024, while the number departing healthcare more than doubled. Among people aged 40–50, the share of adult emigrants rose from 13 to 20 percent, and their combined pre-departure income tripled to 2.7 billion shekels.

Established professionals, rather than mainly younger workers at the outset of their careers, are increasingly taking their skills, families, savings, and capital abroad. The number reporting overseas transfers exceeding 500,000 shekels quadrupled in 2023–2024.

A new geography of exit

Official statistics record absence more reliably than destination, but a new geography is visible. A Haaretz investigation found a growing demand for relocation to Portugal, Cyprus, and other European states. Cyprus has become a contingency base for some: in the first days after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023, Reuters reported that more than 2,500 Israelis sought refuge there.

Greece is another destination. According to Le Monde, Greek authorities reported an approximately 70-percent rise in “golden visas” issued to Israelis after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Not every visa or property purchase becomes permanent migration, but each relocation lowers the informational, social, and financial barriers facing the next family considering departure.

The fiscal cost of a shrinking base

Each annual cohort that emigrated in 2023 and 2024 had paid approximately 1.2 billion shekels in income tax before departure, compared with around 500 million shekels for cohorts before 2019. The Tax Authority estimates a potential loss of about 700 million shekels per cohort. Some emigrants retain Israeli tax residency, but if similar cohorts accumulate, annual revenue at risk could approach 3.5 billion shekels within five years.

Israel’s high-tech sector produces roughly one-fifth of GDP, more than half of exports, and about one-third of salaried income tax. It also provides expertise in cyberintelligence and military technology. Sustained outflow could weaken both commercial innovation and capabilities central to Israel’s security doctrine.

Israel’s war economy rests heavily on a relatively small, highly productive section of the population, even as its policies push more of these workers and taxpayers abroad. Their departure leaves fewer people to shoulder a growing fiscal and military burden.

The Bank of Israel has separately warned that low labor-force participation among Haredi men and the need to broaden military service remain structural challenges.

For some, relocation is a silent political withdrawal – a vote with their feet against a state increasingly defined by religious polarization and permanent mobilization. Economist Itai Ater warns: “If there is no change, emigration could increase in a way that endangers Israel’s security and economy.”

The state’s attempt to buy time

In March 2026, the Knesset Finance Committee approved a graduated five-year income-tax exemption for qualifying immigrants and long-term returning residents. The ceiling reaches one million shekels in 2027 and 2028; the Finance Ministry initially estimated the five-year cost at 560 million shekels.

Officially, the measure promotes immigration and growth. In practice, it also reveals the scale of the concern: Israel is losing some of those it can least afford to lose and must pay a premium to recover or replace them.

Tax incentives cannot easily compensate for prolonged war, repeated reserve mobilization, political instability, institutional polarization, or an increasingly militarized future.

Physical war damage can be repaired with money. Buildings can be reconstructed and weapons replenished. But when a state loses the people who generate its technology, operate its hospitals, staff its universities, and finance its military, the damage becomes cumulative and structural.

Israel’s most consequential wartime losses may ultimately be the people who quietly conclude that their future lies elsewhere.

August 31, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | Comments Off on The exodus Israel cannot afford

Arab states call US sanctions on Iran unrealistic: Report

Press TV – August 31, 2026

Leaders of the Arab Persian Gulf states have reportedly told Washington that sanctions imposed on Iran by the US Treasury Secretary are “unrealistic” and difficult for the countries to accommodate, citing their geographic proximity and close ties with Iran.

Officials from the Persian Gulf states formally conveyed to the US side that the directive issued by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as part of an economic war against Iran, was “not realistic” and could not be tolerated given their geographic circumstances, neighboring status and proximity to Iran.

The regional newspaper Rai al-Youm reported that Western diplomatic circles believe the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar are unlikely to show the same willingness as European countries to comply with decisions and memoranda issued by the US Treasury Department.

According to the report, some foreign governments, including Qatar, may not adhere to US threats of economic sanctions, viewing them as unrealistic and evidence of the continued escalation of tensions in the region.

Such measures, the report said, could also undermine efforts to pursue scenarios aimed at reducing regional tensions.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the new “economic terrorism” campaign, absurdly comparing it to the D-Day Normandy landings of World War II.

Bessent claimed the measures target Iran’s financial networks worldwide and warned that no partner is beyond Washington’s reach.

He said the Trump administration has identified entities dealing with Iran and will impose deadlines for them to cut ties or face exclusion from the US dollar system.

China, Russia and Pakistan have also opposed US threats of sanctions against countries trading with Iran.

Abdolamir Rabihavi, director general of the West Asia Office of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization, said Iran’s trading partners had largely disregarded the announcement of new US sanctions and that trade with these countries was continuing.

Rabihavi said expanding trade with neighboring countries as well as major Eastern economies could provide an opportunity to strengthen Iran’s foreign trade.

“One should not be overly influenced by unprofessional remarks by US officials, as many countries need Iranian goods and the country’s products are competitive in target markets in terms of quality and price,” he said.

The official said trade was a two-way, mutually beneficial relationship, noting that just as Iran seeks markets for its goods, its trading partners are also looking for suitable suppliers to meet their needs, and Iran can supply part of those requirements.

Rabihavi also stressed the need to diversify Iran’s export markets, saying Africa, with around 50 countries and a population of nearly 1.5 billion, represents an important and relatively underdeveloped market for Iranian exports of goods and services.

Alongside African countries, Rabihavi said, Central Asian states could also provide suitable markets for Iranian goods, particularly given their existing capacities and the opportunities offered by free-trade agreements, which Iran should seriously seek to utilize.

August 31, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Arab states call US sanctions on Iran unrealistic: Report

Hydrocarbon Reserves in Russia’s Far East Comparable to World’s Largest Basins – Rosnedra

Sputnik – 30.08.2026

MOSCOW – The Russian Far East’s hydrocarbon reserves are comparable in volume to the world’s largest oil and gas basins, Russian Federal Agency for Mineral Resources (Rosnedra) head Oleg Kazanov said in an interview Sputnik ahead of the Eastern Economic Forum.

“The Far East’s hydrocarbon resource volumes are comparable to the world’s largest provinces,” he said.

The Persian Gulf basin is the world’s largest oil and gas province. Other major basins are the West Siberian, Mexican, Permian and Venezuelan.

Kazanov said that Russia’s Far East is often called a geological “gray spot.” He argued this was not entirely accurate since more than 7,800 mineral deposits have been discovered there.

At the same time, much of the territory is indeed less explored than Western Siberia. The main reasons are remoteness, lack of infrastructure, challenging climate and terrain, and the historical priority of investment in Western Siberia, the Rosnedra head said.

The Eastern Economic Forum will be held in Vladivostok from September 1-4. Sputnik is a general media partner of the forum.

August 30, 2026 Posted by | Economics | | Comments Off on Hydrocarbon Reserves in Russia’s Far East Comparable to World’s Largest Basins – Rosnedra

China’s opposition to illegal unilateral sanctions is consistent and unequivocal: FM on possible US sanctions on Chinese banks over Iran ties

By Ma Tong | Global Times | August 28, 2026

China on Friday reiterated that dialogue and negotiation is the only viable way to resolve the Iran issue and that its opposition to illegal unilateral sanctions is consistent and unequivocal, after US President Donald Trump suggested Washington could impose sanctions on Chinese banks doing business with Iran.

“On the Iran situation, we always believe that dialogue and negotiation is the only viable way out. China opposes illicit unilateral sanctions. This position is consistent and clear,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular press briefing on Friday.

Trump on Thursday hinted at possible sanctions on Chinese banks when asked whether Washington would punish them for doing business with Iran. “Who said I’m not? You don’t know if I’m doing it … I don’t have to announce everything, do I?” Trump said, according to Reuters.

The remarks came as the US has intensified economic pressure on Iran, broadening the sectors and actors targeted by its sanctions campaign after months of military strikes and diplomacy failed to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Zhou Mi, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Friday that the latest US push to tighten sanctions on Iran reflects a clear expansion of US’s unilateral sanctions approach, which had previously focused more heavily on traditional sectors such as energy and oil and gas.

“What we are seeing is a continued broadening of both the sectors covered and the entities targeted,” Zhou said. He described the trend as a further “generalization” of US restrictions, with the US extending unilateral measures into new areas and to a wider range of actors, in some cases beyond the scope of previous international consensus on Iran-related sanctions.

Washington has already targeted Chinese mainland and Hong Kong entities in previous rounds of Iran-related sanctions. But it stopped short of blacklisting major Chinese banks and refiners, the South China Morning Post reported on Friday.

Zhou warned that extending such measures to financial institutions would sharply magnify the fallout, given the broad, complex and two-way nature of cross-border financial networks. “If such sanctions were actually imposed, the impact would be extensive and may significantly escalate tensions in China-US relations,” he said, adding that such a move would be detrimental to both sides.

The latest threat comes as the US expanded its sanctions on Iran. On Monday, the US Treasury launched “Operation Economic Outcast,” expanding the categories of Iran-related conduct potentially exposed to secondary sanctions and sanctioning nearly 60 entities, individuals and vessels across multiple jurisdictions. It also warned that entities facilitating certain Iran-related activities could risk being cut off from the US financial system.

China has repeatedly rejected such pressure. Lin said on Tuesday that economic warfare and maximum pressure “provide no solution” and would instead fuel tensions and lead to risk spillover, disrupting the global economic and financial order, and harm the legitimate rights and interests of other countries. Lin also stressed that China will do everything necessary to firmly safeguard its rights and interests.

Zhou emphasized that the latest US threats also run counter to efforts to translate the consensus reached by the Chinese and US heads of state into concrete actions and build a more constructive and stable bilateral relationship.

“China’s door to negotiations has always been open,” Zhou said. “If the US genuinely wants to implement the consensus reached by the two sides, it should stop resorting to threats and take concrete steps toward mutually beneficial cooperation, or at the very least, reasonable and fair competition, rather than continuing to rely on unilateral measures.”

August 29, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on China’s opposition to illegal unilateral sanctions is consistent and unequivocal: FM on possible US sanctions on Chinese banks over Iran ties

US cuts Banque Misr UAE from financial system over Iran sanctions

Al Mayadeen | August 28, 2026

The United States has cut Banque Misr’s UAE branch off from the US financial system over alleged violations of Washington’s sanctions on Iran, the US Department of the Treasury said Friday.

The move comes days after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced “Operation Economic Outcast”, a campaign aimed at isolating the Islamic Republic and countries accused of supporting it by targeting potential sources of revenue available to Tehran.

On Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sent a letter to the UN leadership and member states, calling on them to condemn what he described as an attempt at economic coercion.

Experts say the US move to cut Banque Misr’s UAE branch from the US financial system falls well short of the broader measures threatened by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent under “Operation Economic Outcast,” limiting its impact to a single branch rather than imposing sanctions on the bank itself.

Banque Misr UAE targeted under US sanctions campaign

Under the latest measures, the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed revoking Banque Misr UAE’s access to correspondent banking services provided by US financial institutions.

“Under Operation Economic Outcast, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed a rule that would revoke Banque Misr UAE’s correspondent banking access to U.S. financial institutions,” the Treasury said in a press release.

The department alleged that the UAE-based banking institution had worked with front companies used by Iran’s Ministry of Defense and the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps to circumvent US sanctions.

Treasury alleges Iran sanctions evasion

The Treasury also announced separate sanctions targeting Reza Mohammad Taeedi, manager of Bank Melli’s branch in Dubai, and Hong Kong-based Kameng Trading Limited.

According to the department, Taeedi and the trading company aided Iranian nationals who were already subject to US sanctions.

Iran vows no surrender

In response to Washington’s economic war, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tuesday that economic pressure is an American strategy aimed at subjugating Iran and forcing it to surrender, as Tehran warned that any pressure targeting the Iranian people’s livelihoods and security would be treated as part of the war.

Pezeshkian made the remarks during a meeting with Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council President Faiq Zidan, saying Iran’s adversaries had recognized their inability to subdue the Iranian people militarily and had therefore shifted toward creating social and economic problems inside the country.

“Iran will not surrender,” Pezeshkian stressed, rejecting economic pressure as a means of forcing Tehran to submit.

August 28, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on US cuts Banque Misr UAE from financial system over Iran sanctions

Iranian business still active in UAE despite US ‘Economic D-Day’: WSJ

Al Mayadeen | August 28, 2026

Iranian commercial and financial activity continues across Dubai despite Washington’s push to sharply restrict Tehran’s access to regional markets and financial networks, The Wall Street Journal reported.

According to the newspaper, Iranian banks, airlines, restaurants, and businesses remain active in the United Arab Emirates even after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced what he called an “Economic D-Day” campaign aimed at countries and companies maintaining economic links with Iran.

Bessent had specifically demanded the closure of overseas branches of Bank Melli Iran, but the bank’s operations in Dubai appeared unchanged this week.

At one Bank Melli branch in Dubai’s old city, around a dozen tellers were continuing to serve Farsi-speaking customers, according to the report. Employees said they had received no instructions ordering the branch to cease operations.

“We put our trust in God on what happens next,” an Iranian bank employee said.

Bank Melli has operated in the UAE since 1969 and currently maintains two branches in Dubai.

US waves secondary sanctions

The continued activity comes despite the UAE Foreign Ministry announcing last week that the country was suspending trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran amid mounting US pressure.

Washington has warned governments and companies that continued dealings with Tehran could expose them to secondary sanctions.

“It is no longer acceptable to operate in the gray spaces of this conflict,” Bessent said. “These measures broaden secondary sanctions risk for anyone foolish enough to continue conducting business with this regime.”

Iranian economic networks remain embedded in Dubai

According to the WSJ, the gap between the public announcements and conditions on the ground reflects the depth of economic ties connecting Iran and the UAE, particularly Dubai.

Iranian businesses have operated in the emirate for decades, while hundreds of thousands of Iranians are believed to live in the UAE and use Dubai as an important gateway to international finance and trade.

Iranian airlines also continue to operate direct services between Iran and the Emirates. UAE carriers Emirates, Etihad, and FlyDubai are not currently flying directly to Iranian destinations, although some reportedly continue to use Iranian airspace.

The newspaper also found Iranian restaurants and cafes operating normally in Dubai, with Iranian residents interacting openly with Emirati customers.

Earlier restrictions eased

Some restrictions imposed earlier in the year appear to have eased as well.

During a broader crackdown in the spring, UAE authorities closed the Iranian Hospital and Iranian Club, temporarily restricted Iranian passport holders from entering or transiting the country and revoked visas belonging to some Iranian residents.

The hospital and club remain closed, but Iranians interviewed by the newspaper said widespread visa cancellations appear to have stopped and some previously withdrawn visas have since been restored.

Iranian residents are nevertheless preparing for the possibility of tighter financial restrictions. Some told the newspaper they could turn to the traditional hawala transfer system if formal banking links with Iran are eventually disrupted.

Severing Iran-UAE trade seen as difficult

Economic ties between the two countries are extensive.

Around $28 billion in trade passed between Iran and the UAE in 2024, according to World Trade Organization figures cited by the newspaper.

Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow at Chatham House, said the economic relationship cannot easily be dismantled.

“The Gulf Arab state economies are so closely integrated and intertwined with the Iranian economy, you can’t just simply sever economic trade and activity overnight,” Quilliam said. “The U.A.E., and Dubai in particular, have always managed to continue to do trade, even when the maximum pressure is on. Cutting off that trade will be cutting off their nose, basically.”

Dubai has also long been identified by US authorities as a major center for financial activity linked to Iran.

The UAE also hosts the second-largest number of individuals and companies sanctioned by the US Treasury over alleged Iran-related activity after China, according to Levitt.

Washington faces competing interests in UAE

The report noted that pushing Abu Dhabi to fully sever its economic relationship with Tehran could create complications for Washington because of the UAE’s broader strategic importance to the United States.

The Emirates hosts US military facilities, maintains close security relations with Washington, and was the first Gulf Arab state to sign the US-brokered “Abraham Accords” establishing formal diplomatic relations with “Israel”.

The country has also emerged as a major source of investment in US sectors including artificial intelligence.

Those interests give Washington incentives to preserve strong relations with Abu Dhabi even as it demands tougher enforcement against Iranian commercial networks.

For Emirati authorities, maintaining some economic channels with Iran may also be viewed as a means of reducing regional tensions.

“There will be some in the U.A.E. who say, ‘Whatever the price of calm, that is what we need to do,’ ” Levitt said. “Better to do that by allowing them to access banking and supply chains through our country than not,” he said of the Emirates’ thinking on Iran.

Dubai faces an additional economic calculation because, unlike oil-rich Abu Dhabi, its economy relies heavily on trade, finance, tourism, and international capital flows.

The WSJ report therefore suggests that despite Washington’s escalating sanctions threats and the UAE’s public commitment to restrict economic links with Tehran, deeply established Iranian financial and commercial networks in Dubai remain difficult to dismantle.

August 28, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on Iranian business still active in UAE despite US ‘Economic D-Day’: WSJ

Iran vows response if US moves to seize its oil at sea

Al Mayadeen| August 27, 2026

Iran will respond swiftly and decisively to any US attempt to revive a mechanism known as “prize courts” to detain oil tankers and seize Iranian oil shipments, a senior Iranian security official stated on Thursday.

According to Nournews, the official said that if Washington uses the mechanism to detain Iranian oil tankers and confiscate their cargoes, the Islamic Republic of Iran would take “serious and swift measures” to impose reciprocal costs on US interests in the Gulf.

“If America is going to detain Iranian oil at sea and then confiscate it under the title of war prize, it must also be prepared to expose American interests to corresponding retaliatory measures,” the official warned.

The official said US interests in shipping, energy, insurance, finance, and Gulf-related infrastructure would not be insulated from the consequences of such action.

He added that companies and institutions involved in owning, financing, insuring, or operating US interests in the region have been identified and are being monitored.

Iran warns against escalation in Gulf

The official further stressed that Iran does not seek to harm regional trade or disrupt the activities of neutral states, but cautioned that this should not be mistaken for an inability to respond.

“If the Americans believe they can take advantage of the complexities of the maritime navigation network and intermediary companies to avoid bearing the consequences of their actions at the hands of Iran, they are mistaken in this belief,” the official said.

He added that, if necessary, Iran would establish a proportionate response for each level of US action.

“Beginning the organized detention and confiscation of Iranian oil will mean the beginning of a two-way process,” the official said, warning that “America cannot grant itself the right to confiscate while simultaneously expecting its interests in the Gulf to remain immune from any reciprocal response.”

The official stressed that the final decision on the nature and scale of any Iranian response would depend on the conduct of the other side. However, he warned that if Washington escalates its economic and maritime confrontation with Tehran, Iran also possesses the means to increase the cost of such a policy.

US reportedly weighs revival of ‘prize courts’

The warning follows reports by US media on Wednesday evening that the US Department of Justice is working to revive “prize courts,” an old mechanism that could allow Iranian oil tankers to be detained and their oil and other confiscated cargoes converted into US-owned assets.

According to Nournews, the seized cargoes could subsequently be sold, with the proceeds transferred to the US Treasury.

The reported move comes amid the economic war Washington waged against Tehran amid its inability to achieve its so-called objectives militarily.

August 27, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , | Comments Off on Iran vows response if US moves to seize its oil at sea

US Looks to Revive ‘Prize Courts’ to Seize Iranian Oil Tankers — Reports

Sputnik – 27.08.2026

The US Justice Department is preparing to revive long-dormant maritime “prize courts” to speed up the military capture of Iranian oil tankers and cargo as US property, Bloomberg reported.

The plan would allow the US to seize oil and other cargo from enemy or even neutral vessels, sell it, and transfer the proceeds to the US Treasury.

Aaron Reitz, a US attorney involved in the initiative, confirmed that the Justice Department is “now reviving” what he called an “ancient body of maritime law.”

The move is expected to face legal challenges, as prize courts have gone largely unused since the Spanish-American War of 1898 and have been dormant since World War II.

The plan comes as US forces have already illegally intercepted and seized multiple Iranian-owned or Iran-linked ships since imposing an unlawful blockade in April.

The US lectures the world about “freedom of navigation” — then digs up antique courts to “legalize” piracy against whoever it decides to bully next.

August 27, 2026 Posted by | Economics, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , | Comments Off on US Looks to Revive ‘Prize Courts’ to Seize Iranian Oil Tankers — Reports

After 6 months of war, why aren’t oil prices even higher?

By Sam Fraser | Responsible Statecraft | August 25, 2026

For decades, the potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been considered the ultimate doomsday scenario for global oil markets. So, when Iran effectively closed the Strait earlier this year in response to the joint U.S.-Israeli assault, many analysts warned that oil prices could skyrocket to record highs.

The logic was straightforward. Prior to the war, about 20% of the global oil supply transited the Strait. A loss of supply on this scale could easily have pushed oil prices to $150 or even $200 per barrel — but it didn’t. Instead, prices peaked around $120 per barrel in April and have largely stayed below $100 since June.

To understand the dynamics that have so far prevented an even higher price spike, and to get a sense of where oil supply and prices may be headed as the conflict drags on, I spoke with Rory Johnston, a leading oil markets analyst and the author of the Commodity Context blog. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Sam Fraser: Let’s talk about why we haven’t seen the $150-200 per barrel oil prices that you warned about early in the war. You’ve pointed to a few reasons, including China’s massive import cuts. As we understand it, what has China done with their oil imports and how have they managed it?

Rory Johnston: It’s a bit of a mystery. At this stage, what we know for sure is that China reduced its crude oil imports by over five million barrels a day, roughly 45% of their total pre-war import appetite. For China, there’s two endpoints of that crude oil balance: into a refinery or into storage. We know that China had been building up a massive volume of strategic reserves prior to the war.

Essentially half of the 5 million barrels a day reduction can be explained roughly by reductions in refining runs in China. The remainder is a question of balancing in and out of stockpiles. Some of it would’ve been likely a drawdown of less visible or underground stockpiles. And the other portion of it is the halting of that prior pace of stockpile building. The main debate is how much each of these factors is contributing. If, let’s say, 80% of that remainder is a halt to prior purchases that were building strategic stocks, that is a bearish outcome for oil prices because it means that Beijing doesn’t need to replace those volumes anytime soon. But if they are aggressively drawing down less visible strategic stocks right now, that’s a much more bullish interpretation because it means they can’t keep going on forever and they’re going to need to replace those stockpiles.

On the refined product side, they cut refining runs by about 2.5 to 3 million barrels a day. What are they doing with that prior flow of diesel, jet fuel, et cetera? And that’s where we start to get even more speculative. Above-ground storage tanks for refined products don’t have floating roofs. We can’t independently verify their fill.

It comes down to the apparent consumption and the apparent available supply of these fuels within China. For gasoline and diesel, each of those supplies have apparently fallen by about 20%, which is a stark reduction. There’s no evidence that people in China are just driving a fifth less. If they aren’t actually cutting back that much on consumption, where is the fuel coming from? Prior to the war, we suspected that China was also building strategic reserves of refined fuels. Again, we can’t verify that, but if they had built that up, they could be drawing it down. We’re then faced with that same question as in crude oil, how much of this is a cessation of prior stock building and how much of this is the drawdown of existing stock?

For reference, the last moment we saw anything like this in terms of apparent consumption collapse was COVID zero in 2022 when the country was entirely locked down.

Fraser: So we can say that stockpiles of refined products must exist, but we have no insight into their size or how much is being drawn down or how sustainable those drawdowns would be?

Johnston: Correct. There are mixed estimates, but I think they are at best estimates. It’s funny, I think in some ways the lack of verifiable data allows people to speak very confidently about what’s happening in China, because there’s no data to rebut virtually any argument. That’s just allowing people to run with it without any kind of real pushback.

Fraser: How have we seen the Chinese buying patterns change since the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding and since it collapsed?

Johnston: What we saw following the MOU was a surge of exiting cargoes from Hormuz. The vast majority of that seems to have routed towards China. What we saw was that, at the very bottom, Chinese crude oil imports fell to around 6 million barrels a day in June. And then those spiked back up to more than 10 million barrels a day in July, or at least that was the high point in July. Roughly a month later, those imports are back down around six. You’ve seen a rollover back to where we stood pre-MOU.

Fraser: Do we know how long this import suppression can continue?

Johnston:. Let’s say this has been entirely a drawdown of stocks, which seems implausible. Even then, they have more than a billion barrels of crude oil stocks that we know about for sure. If they want to support the market to their maximum ability, they can do that for months further. But in doing so, they would deplete the entirety of the energy security blanket they’ve spent almost two decades constructing.

Fraser: Let’s move on to the strategic petroleum reserve releases by the U.S. and other partners. To what degree have those been instrumental in keeping prices from going a lot higher?

Johnston: It’s part of the suite that the world has kind of engaged in to blunt those effects. This is the largest release of strategic stocks on record. Depending on the exact month you’re talking about, it has potentially been over 3 million barrels a day of incremental supply coming from OECD SPRs. Without that, the market would’ve been much tighter and we likely wouldn’t have experienced the same relief even with China’s import cut at the same time.

Fraser: Last week the U.S. SPR dipped under 300 million barrels. There’s a lot of discussion of what the physical limits on those stockpiles are given that they’re stored in salt caverns. They need a certain amount of fill to maintain structural integrity. Are we anywhere close to pushing up against the U.S. ability to continue drawing down from those stockpiles?

Johnston: I do not believe we are. I think that you have probably at least another 200 million barrels that can be readily drawn down. With the required fill level, absolutely it would be a massive issue if you just drew it down and left a vacuum in there. It would implode on itself. But they don’t do that. They one-to-one replace a barrel of crude oil extracted with a barrel of saturated brine. So theoretically it should maintain the same fill. The issue for SPRs is not necessarily fill level, but number of refill and empty cycles. It’s the actual up-and-down motion that disturbs and further erodes the walls and structural integrity.

I think that the SPR caverns can get below 100 million barrels of fill before we run into any issues.

Fraser: So if we continued the current rate of drawdown, that would take us well into next year.

Johnston: Correct.

Fraser: Over the course of the war, Trump or someone in his administration will make a statement about how diplomacy is progressing or about how much oil is coming out of the strait. And even if those are quickly disproven, there is a downward impact on prices. So why do these traders keep listening to Trump? Has there been a change in the reaction of markets over the course of this war?

Johnston: You definitely get smaller drawdowns to these kinds of jawboning attempts today than you would have, say, in March and April, where there are multiple days that you saw $15 to $20 per barrel reductions in the span of a day.

When you look at the history of oil, there’s a tendency on these geopolitical events to overdo it. That’s a natural kind of fear-driven phenomenon. In some ways Trump has short-circuited that normal behavior in oil markets. Because while you’re right that it’s never coming true, the price action is coming true. At the end of the day, for prices to go higher, you need traders to bid higher. And if they bid higher and they get blown out of the water and they lose their jobs, they’re going to be replaced by someone that doesn’t bid higher on geopolitical risk. It has successfully arrested the upside volatility. But if we keep getting tighter, markets will continue to respond higher; we just won’t get those runaway phenomena that we would’ve seen historically.

Fraser: Since the start of the war, we’ve seen Saudi Arabia and the UAE successfully use pipelines as an alternative route to get oil out of the Gulf. How much oil are those getting out at this point? And has the Houthi blockade of Saudi shipping in the Red Sea had a meaningful effect on this?

Johnston: The total volume coming out of Emirates at Fujairah and then the west coast of Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea rose to about 6-7 million barrels. It was about 2-3 million before, so that was an incremental change of 4-5 million barrels.

To your question with the Houthis, it has absolutely been having an effect. As soon as they started attacking Saudi ships, the entire Red Sea fleet went dark. Everyone turned off their transponders, making it much harder to verify flows out of Saudi Arabia. Verifiable transits of Saudi tankers through the Bab al-Mandab have gone functionally to zero. They still are probably getting some out, but we’re also seeing evidence of flows north into the Mediterranean. Pre-war flows here were around a million barrels a day, give or take. That’s jumped over the past week or two to around 2.5 million barrels a day, presumed Saudi flow.

Over the past two weeks, we’ve also seen Saudi Arabia begin loading tankers in the Gulf again, which they hadn’t done since the collapse of the MOU. And the question is, does Riyadh know something? Is something big going to break in the Hormuz negotiations? Or are they being forced back into the Gulf? You’re seeing reports now that they are participating in the Emirati-led shuttle trade, ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman. It seems likely that some of that is displaced barrels coming back from the Red Sea. So Saudi Arabia is needing to diversify away from its diversification. There’s a poetic side to it.

Fraser: Pulling all these factors together, where are we left in terms of a kind of global supply shortage? And what kinds of price impacts can we expect if that persists over the next few months?

Johnston: It’s very hard to estimate global balance right now. My bet would be 2-4 million barrels a day undersupplied on a global basis.

The rub on top of that is that we now have a parallel crisis that’s emerging on the refining side of the slate. So even if we’ve sorted out what was happening on the crude oil side, we have the Ukrainian hammering of Russian refineries, the attacks in the Black Sea, the reduction in U.S. exports now that stocks have drawn down, and China is not exporting refined products either. All together this further tightens global refined product markets.

If this persists and we keep drawing down crude oil stocks, the crude oil price is going to keep rising. On top of that, we could see refined product prices independently going higher. So that’s just an amplification. For consumers, it’s refined product prices and not crude oil that are going to drive those economic issues.

Fraser: So even though these factors we’ve discussed have kept oil prices down so far, and the biggest of these can persist for a while, we could still be looking at those extremely elevated prices by a few months from now.

Johnston: Easily. We’re already feeling it. Refined prices are already at demand-destructive levels. It’s just a question of whether they are at sufficiently demand-destructive levels. It’s the same fundamental concern I would’ve had back in April, playing out on a much longer timeline and now more on the product side than the entire oil complex.

Sam Fraser is a writer based in New York City. He holds a Master’s in International Finance and Economic Policy from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where his studies focused on the changing global trade system. Previously, Sam worked as Senior Communications Associate and Publications Manager at the Quincy Institute.

August 25, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on After 6 months of war, why aren’t oil prices even higher?

Sanctioning the Dollar Iran Already Left: Why Bessent’s “Economic D-Day” Is Toothless

By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | August 24, 2026 

There was one sentence in Scott Bessent’s Monday sanctions announcement that gave the whole game away. Anyone who launders money for the Iranian regime, the Treasury Secretary warned, “will be removed from the US dollar system.” He meant it as a threat of annihilation. It is, instead, a confession of the policy’s central weakness. The entire architecture of what Bessent has branded “Operation Economic Outcast” rests on a single assumption — that Iran and its trading partners need the U.S. dollar. They increasingly do not. And a threat to bar someone from the dollar system means nothing to a trade that has already walked out of it and into the Chinese yuan.

What Bessent actually announced

Strip away the “economic D-Day” theatrics and the substance is a secondary-sanctions framework: the United States threatens to punish any country or entity that refuses to sever economic ties with Iran, expands the categories of activity exposed to those secondary sanctions into five new fields — digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping — and designates roughly sixty individuals, entities, and vessels tied to nuclear and missile procurement, cyber operations, and oil smuggling. The mechanism of pain, in every case, is the same: exclusion from the dollar-based financial system that Washington polices through its control of dollar clearing, SWIFT messaging, and correspondent banking.

That is a devastating weapon against anyone who lives inside the dollar system. It is close to irrelevant against those who have deliberately built their most important trade outside it. And Iran’s lifeline — the oil trade with China — is now largely outside it.

The trade that runs on yuan

Follow the barrels. China is now the buyer of over 80 percent of Iran’s seaborne crude exports. Iran is shipping somewhere around 1.65 to 1.8 million barrels a day, almost all of it to the independent “teapot” refiners of Shandong, moved by a shadow fleet of more than 350 tankers using ship-to-ship transfers off Malaysia, Singapore, and the Sea of Oman, the cargoes routinely rebranded as Malaysian or Omani. And critically, the money for it increasingly does not move in dollars. Payment flows in yuan, routed through small Chinese banks and Hong Kong trading shells, settled in a growing volume of renminbi that bypasses the dollar clearing system entirely.

The plumbing for this is China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, CIPS — the settlement network the People’s Bank of China launched in 2015 precisely to clear cross-border yuan transactions without touching the Western financial architecture. Its use has surged in lockstep with the war. CIPS processed on the order of $214 billion in March 2026, hit a single-day record of 1.22 trillion yuan — roughly $178 billion — across nearly 42,000 transactions, and saw its average daily value jump about 50 percent from February to March, a spike analysts tied directly to the Iran conflict and rising yuan demand in oil trade. More than five thousand institutions are now connected. These channels allow settlement without any intermediary US bank in the chain — which is the entire point.

Nor is this confined to China. Even Indian refiners buying rare cargoes of Iranian oil have settled the payments in yuan, routed through the Shanghai branch of an Indian bank, because Iran wants a currency that sidesteps the dollar sanctions channel. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has reportedly begun demanding yuan or cryptocurrency for oil transactions outright. When Bessent adds “digital assets” and “gold” to his sanctions categories, he is chasing evasion routes Iran is already using by design, through a shadow system purpose-built to be untraceable.

You cannot freeze a yuan payment out of a dollar system it never enters. That is not a loophole in Bessent’s plan. It is the plan’s foundation, missing.

The market already delivered its verdict

The most eloquent judgment on these sanctions came not from a pundit but from the oil market itself. If traders believed Bessent’s “economic onslaught” would actually choke off Iranian barrels, crude would have spiked on the announcement. It did the opposite. Brent fell about 2.3 percent on August 24, sliding below $92, as investors concluded the measures were unlikely to remove Iranian oil from the market. A sanctions package advertised as an economic D-Day was met by the market marking the price of oil down. The traders who move real money on real supply read the announcement for exactly what it was: sound and fury aimed at a target the dollar can no longer reach.

The one tooth Bessent won’t bare

There is precisely one measure that could actually bite the yuan trade: sanctioning the major Chinese banks and the CIPS architecture that clear it — cutting large Chinese financial institutions out of the dollar system and forcing Beijing to choose. And that is the step Bessent, once again, announced but did not take. He warned that at least one major financial institution could face sanctions this week, and said China would not be exempt. A threat, not an action — the same threat that has hovered over this campaign for months and never descends, because executing it means a financial rupture with Beijing on the eve of a planned Trump-Xi meeting, and an oil-price shock Washington cannot afford heading into the midterms.

And even if he pulled that trigger, the trade is engineered to survive it. The yuan payments already move through small Chinese banks and Hong Kong front companies precisely so that the large, dollar-exposed institutions stay clean and the flow continues if a big bank is hit. The system was designed by people who assumed Washington would eventually come for it. Bessent is threatening to breach a wall its builders reinforced years ago.

Ten years of sanctions, and a larger economy

Step back from Monday’s announcement and ask the longer question: what has a decade of sanctions actually done to the size of Iran’s economy? Measured properly, it has grown.

The measure matters, because there are two ways to size an economy and here they tell opposite stories. In nominal dollars — the plane on which sanctions operate — Iran looks devastated: its dollar GDP is around $300 billion in 2026, and dollar income per head has been falling fast, because the rial has been pulverized and everything Iranian looks cheap when priced in a currency Iranians increasingly cannot obtain. But nominal-dollar GDP largely measures the exchange rate, not the economy. Measured by purchasing power parity — which values what Iran actually produces at the prices Iranians actually pay, stripping out the collapsed currency — Iran’s GDP has risen from roughly $1.4 trillion in 2015, when the JCPOA-era sanctions architecture was in force, to about $2.18 trillion in 2026, by the IMF’s reckoning the world’s twenty-third-largest economy. That is an expansion of more than fifty percent over the same decade of “maximum pressure” that was supposed to break it.

The caveat belongs in plain sight, not buried: part of that gain is simply more Iranians — the population has grown by roughly a sixth since 2015 — so per-capita output has risen far more modestly, and none of it means Iranian households feel richer, with inflation running near forty percent and the currency in ruins. Growth of the economy is not prosperity for the family. But that is a different claim from the one that matters for sanctions policy. A pressure campaign that can wreck a currency and still not shrink real output is a campaign that produces hardship without submission. Iran has now demonstrated exactly that across two sanctions architectures — the JCPOA snapback and its “maximum pressure” successors — and ten years of data. Bessent is adding a chapter to a book whose ending is already written.

The honest limits

This is a dollar bypass, not the death of the dollar. The greenback still makes up around 57 percent of global foreign-exchange reserves against roughly 2 percent for the yuan, and only a low single-digit share of cross-border trade settles in renminbi; CIPS remains far smaller than the SWIFT-and-CHIPS system it shadows. The claim here is narrow and it is enough: a determined seller like Iran, with a willing Chinese counterparty, can route its oil revenue around the dollar — not that the world has.

Nor are the sanctions literally costless to Tehran. The friction of operating in the shadows is real: Iran sells its crude at discounts of $14 to $17 a barrel below Brent, up from $8 in 2023, precisely because sanctions raise the risk and complexity of buying it; its fiscal break-even sits far above the price it actually realizes, and the rial has lost most of its value. Bessent’s measures will add a little more friction at the margin — another turn of the screw on the discount, another few front companies to replace.

But friction is not a chokehold, and a poorer Iran is not a compliant one. The sanctions make Iran’s oil cheaper and its economy more strained; they do not, and cannot, sever the yuan-denominated artery to China that keeps the oil flowing and the regime funded. That artery is the thing Bessent promised to cut, and it is the one thing his announcement does not touch.

Bessent has threatened to expel Iran and its partners from a financial system Iran has spent years leaving. The dollar guillotine is real, and it still falls with terrible force on anyone standing beneath it — but Iran’s oil trade stepped off the block and into the yuan, and every fresh round of dollar-weaponization only sharpens the incentive for others to follow. The measures announced Monday will generate headlines, a few dozen designations, and a marginal widening of the discount China already enjoys on Iranian crude. What they will not do is the thing they were sold to do: collapse Iran’s options and force it to heel. You cannot sever a lifeline that no longer runs through your hands. Bessent is standing guard at a door Iran walked out of a long time ago, threatening to lock it.

August 25, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Sanctioning the Dollar Iran Already Left: Why Bessent’s “Economic D-Day” Is Toothless

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