The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed it is targeting the Iranian government and coming to the aid of the nation’s people by waging all-out war on the Middle East country, but an analysis of US policy changes announced this week indicates that ordinary Iranians will bear the brunt of the pain from the White House’s new economic assault.
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) noted that the first actions that the Trump administration has taken under its so-called Operation Economic Outcast “are aimed squarely at ordinary Iranians and at severing personal, familial, academic, and cultural relationships between Americans and Iranians.” The group noted that the Trump administration has “suspended key humanitarian exemptions from existing sanctions on Iran designed to allow Iranian Americans to send personal remittances to family in Iran, to allow universities to enroll or offer scholarships to Iranian students, and to allow for sports exchanges involving American and Iranian athletes.”
NIAC went on to cite specific examples:
- 31 CFR § 560.544: Allowing universities to recruit, enroll, and educate students who are ordinarily resident in Iran, and offer them scholarships;
- 31 CFR § 560.550: Allowing Americans to send personal, non-commercial remittances to non-sanctioned persons in Iran.
- 31 CFR § 560.554 and Iran General License G: Allowing academic and educational exchanges between the US and Iran.
- Iran General License F: Allowing for friendly matches and other sports exchanges involving the US and Iran.
“We have had decades of sanctions underscore that collective punishment is strategically and morally wrong,” said NIAC president Jamal Abdi in a statement. "Iranian civilians have grown poorer while the government elite has been unscathed.”
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared earlier this week that the Trump administration is “launching an economic onslaught against Iran’s financial connections around the globe” with the stated goal of severing “every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.” Bessent said the administration has given “every country” a “defined timeline to shut down activities we have identified.”
NIAC said Tuesday that “rather than devote US resources to strengthening sanctions exemptions for ordinary people and making the sanctions ‘smarter’ by targeting them against decisionmakers and bad actors, the administration is making our sanctions dumber and even more blunt.”
“This is a radical revision to the Iran sanctions architecture: ending the ability of Iranian Americans to send their family any remittances, blocking universities from enrolling Iranian students, ending sports exchanges,” said Ryan Costello, NIAC’s policy director. “It is senseless, punitive collective punishment.”
The intensified economic warfare comes after months of an illegal, widely unpopular, deadly, and economically destructive war that Trump and his Israeli counterpart, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, launched in late February.
Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said Tuesday that the new US economic assault is “about annihilating the most foundational rules of international law and the UN Charter—namely, respect for the sovereign equality and self-determination of all states.”
“When a bully declares that every bank, company, port, and government must choose between obeying Washington’s whims or facing American vengeance, this is no longer just about Iran,” Baghaei wrote in a social media post. “No decent state that values its sovereignty and national interests will accept the normalization of such grand lawlessness and systemic bullying.”
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