US President Donald Trump’s administration has announced new economic sanctions against Iran, describing the measures as an “economic D-day” as the US war with Iran approaches six months.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the sanctions on Monday, along with a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
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Bessent said the sanctions target Iran’s main sources of revenue, including its oil and gas industry, and called on countries around the world to sever economic ties with Iran.
What are sanctions?
The sanctions target Iran’s aviation, digital assets, gold, technology and shipping sectors, as well as 60 specific individuals and vessels, the Treasury Department said.
“The important thing is that Iran seems to have much less room to simply evade sanctions than in previous years,” Tehran-based geopolitical analyst Peyman Salehi told Al Jazeera.
Bessent also said on Monday that the new sanctions would expose Iran’s trading partners to secondary penalties. The Treasury Department’s announcement on Monday said this includes ships based in or associated with countries such as Singapore, China and Hong Kong.
“Today’s sanctions are largely incremental, but they are part of an effort to intimidate remaining trading partners into breaking ties[with Iran],” said Rachel Ziemba, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank.
“There has been a lot of signalling, a lot of noise, aimed at inducing other countries to crack down on entities involved in gray zone trade, but so far the new measures have been mostly incremental,” she said. Gray zone trading refers to both illegal underground trading and unsanctioned but difficult trading.
The Treasury Department said Iran has been using cryptocurrencies to circumvent long-standing sanctions and facilitate transactions involving the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Iranian regime officials. The ministry also said Iran is using gold to support the value of its currency amid economic instability.
The new shipping sanctions target a shipping fleet linked to the Iranian state, which the Treasury Department claims is being used to transport oil and “sensitive weapons parts.”
The technology sanctions are aimed at restricting access to materials that could be used in Iran’s weapons program. Air sanctions target Iranian airlines, which the Treasury Department says are used to transport weapons, military personnel and funds to Iranian proxies.
The U.S. government also indefinitely suspended several broad exceptions to ongoing sanctions against Iran, including academic exchanges, personal remittances, and certain sports activities. Organizations currently engaged in these activities must reduce their activities by September 8th.
Ziemba said these measures “will have a major impact not only on the regime but also on the Iranian people.”
What sanctions are already in place?
The U.S. government’s sanctions against Iran have been in place since 1979 following the hostage-taking of students at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and have been tightened over the past 45 years. However, the sanctions were suspended after President Barack Obama’s administration and world powers signed a nuclear deal with Tehran in 2015. However, the Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear deal during its first term in 2018, reinstating old sanctions while adding new ones.
The US government imposed new sanctions during President Trump’s second term, many of which were imposed before the US and Israel attacked the country for the first time on February 28th.
In February 2025, the Treasury Department sanctioned 30 individuals and vessels involved in “brokering the sale and transportation of Iranian oil-related products,” according to a statement from the ministry. The targets were based in several countries, including India and China.
In December 2025, the US government sanctioned 29 vessels it accused of being part of a so-called shadow fleet used to transport Iranian oil. It also imposed sanctions on Egyptian businessman Hatem Elsayd Farid Ibrahim Saqr over his business’s alleged ties to seven of the 29 vessels. This measure continued the 1979 sanctions campaign against Iran’s oil industry.
The Treasury Department tightened sanctions again in April 2026, targeting 20 more individuals, companies, and vessels operating within the network of Iranian oil shipping tycoon Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, son of late Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani.
Later that month, the Treasury Department also announced it had targeted what it called “regime-linked cryptocurrencies” and seized nearly $500 million from a so-called “shadow banking network.”
How have sanctions affected U.S. consumers?
Pressure on the Iranian oil market, through both existing sanctions and the current war, is tightening oil supplies for the rest of the world and impacting the countries that purchase Iranian oil.
For example, China is the main export destination for Iranian crude oil, purchasing approximately 90% of Iranian crude oil exports. The Chinese government purchased 1.4 million barrels per day in 2025.
At the same time, Asian markets, including China, are also heavily dependent on oil passing through the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passed before Iran blocked the shipping route.
This has put pressure on global oil supplies, pushing up crude oil standards and raising fuel and food prices.
For U.S. consumers, this is most evident at the gas pump. According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), which tracks daily gasoline prices, the average price of a gallon of gasoline (3.78 liters) is $4.09, up from $2.98 on February 28, when the United States and Israel first attacked Iran.
Experts have warned that accelerating Iranian retaliation could be devastating for Americans.
“If sanctions trigger Iranian retaliation against Gulf shipping, significantly reducing oil exports or causing insurance and shipping companies to avoid the region, Americans will feel it quickly through gasoline, diesel, airfare, shipping costs, and ultimately inflation,” John Deal, managing director of capital markets at Post Oak Group Investment Bank, told Al Jazeera.
The economy and Iran have emerged as key issues in the run-up to the US midterm elections, with voters expressing dissatisfaction on both fronts. That could put pressure on Republicans in competitive races, including in traditionally red states like Texas.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in late July found only about a third of Americans supported war, and a CNN poll found just 28% of respondents supported President Trump’s handling of Iran.
On the economy, 32 percent of Americans approve of President Trump’s performance, according to an AP/NORC poll. Meanwhile, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Democrats narrowly ahead of Republicans when it comes to which party voters trust more to handle the economy, the first time in nearly a decade that Democrats have an advantage.
How are sanctions impacting the market?
The latest sanctions announcement is weighing on Wall Street as well as the oil and gold markets.
Following the announcement, the price of gold, largely considered a safe investment during times of economic uncertainty, rose 0.8% in intraday trading to $4,639.49 an ounce (28 grams), its highest since mid-May.
As for crude oil, prices fell back on Monday after rising for two weeks. The price of Brent crude, the world benchmark, fell more than 2% on Monday to $85.22 a barrel.
On Wall Street, major indexes are mixed due to the latest sanctions news and President Trump’s announcement of additional tariffs on Canada. The Nasdaq fell 0.5% and the S&P 500 fell 0.2%. However, the Dow Jones Industrial Average remains in positive territory, 0.2% above where the market opened on Monday.
The oil sector has been hit. Chevron fell 0.8%, ExxonMobil fell 0.9%, BP fell more than 2% and Shell fell 0.2%.
