The American Treasury announces plan against the Iranian economy: secondary sanctions, China included

This morning’s edition opened on the warning issued by Tehran on August 24 to ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz — fines, seizure, confiscation — and on the fact that the text of the rules was not available. In the same hours, on the other side of the confrontation, the United States Department of the Treasury presented its own tool: a plan to isolate the Iranian economy, named “Operation Economic Outcast,” outlined by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (CNBC; CNN).

The core of the plan is the threat of secondary sanctions: not merely targeting Iran, but the entities that financially support its economy, wherever they are based. This is the lever that transforms a bilateral sanction into a choice imposed on third parties — either continue dealing with Tehran or retain access to the United States financial system.

“We are launching an economic assault on Iran’s financial connections around the world” (transl. from English) — Scott Bessent, United States Treasury Secretary

Announcement, not measure. The same distinction applied this morning to the Iranian warning holds here, and it must be stated clearly: the sanctions presented on August 24 have not been imposed. According to CNBC, the United States will first send deadlines to individual countries to shut down the identified activities; only afterward would the measures take effect. This is not a procedural nuance: until named designations are published, the plan remains a political position accompanied by a timetable whose duration and recipients remain unknown. The newspaper does not, as of today, have the text of any act.

The Chinese knot. Bessent indicated that China — Iran’s top trading partner — will not be exempt from the plan. This is the most demanding part of the announcement, and also the one where the gap between statement and practice is most visible: according to analysts cited in CNN’s live coverage, truly affecting Iranian revenues would require sanctions on Chinese companies and banks, a step the United States administration has not taken so far. In the same presentation, the Treasury Secretary said that President Donald Trump is calling world leaders with specific requests to cut relations with Iran.

Onto this is grafted a calendar constraint the plan cannot ignore: a meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping is scheduled in Washington for late September 2026. Striking Chinese banks or companies in the preceding weeks would be a choice that weighs on that meeting; not doing so leaves Tehran’s main economic outlet intact. The two things do not automatically fit together, and this is the point on which yesterday’s announcement offers no answers.

What changes compared to this morning. The two moves — the Iranian warning on transit and the United States plan on transactions — have the same structure: both describe future consequences, neither is accompanied by a public implementing document. Those operating in maritime trade or in credit find themselves weighing two announced threats with no text against which to measure them. For a shipowner, this means not knowing which route entails an administrative risk; for a bank, not knowing which counterparty will become, and when, a sanctionable exposure.

What we do not know. It is not known which countries will receive the deadlines, nor how much time will be granted. No lists of designated entities have been published, nor explanatory notes from the Treasury. No official Chinese or Iranian reaction to the plan is known from the material available. The two sources used — CNBC, present at the Treasury Department’s presentation, and CNN’s live coverage — agree on the content of the announcement; neither reports formal acts already adopted.

The first verifiable confirmation will be the publication of designations or implementing notes by the Office of Foreign Assets Control: until then, the plan is worth only as much as the time it grants its targets.