The mines Iran laid in the Strait of Hormuz have been cleared with zero loss of a US life.

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‘Goods Are Not Coming In’: Tehran Braces for Unrest as Trump Intensifies Economic Offensive
MasoudMasoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran, takes questions from the media at a pressAP Photo/Angelina Katsanis
Joshua Klein28 Aug 20261,240
11:27
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged Friday that the U.S. blockade has slashed Iran’s trade and left critical imports — including gasoline — unable to enter the country, as the Trump administration intensifies an economic offensive aimed at isolating a regime already confronting mounting hardship and the threat of renewed unrest.

Pezeshkian said Iranian imports and exports have fallen between 25 and 35 percent under U.S. sanctions and the blockade, with his government now considering doubling the price of gasoline purchased beyond subsidized quotas as supplies tighten.

“The route is now blocked, and goods are not coming in,” he conceded during a televised interview Friday night. “One of those goods is gasoline.”

The admissions came as Washington began putting teeth behind Operation Economic Outcast, the sweeping pressure campaign Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched Monday with a pledge to economically “asphyxiate” Tehran and “sever every economic lifeline” sustaining the regime.

On Friday, Treasury took its first major step against a foreign financial institution, proposing to cut Banque Misr UAE off from correspondent access to U.S. banks after identifying its Emirati operations as a “critical node” keeping Iranian networks connected to U.S. dollars.

Over the previous two and a half years, the bank processed roughly $1.8 billion for 103 companies potentially tied to Iranian shadow-banking networks, including apparent fronts linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s defense establishment, according to Treasury.

Bessent had put foreign banks on notice Monday that they could no longer help finance Tehran while retaining access to the dollar-based financial system. By Friday, he had his first example.


“Banque Misr UAE decided to find out the hard way,” Bessent said, calling the move “the first step in holding it accountable for its continued, egregious support of the Iranian regime.”

Treasury simultaneously targeted the manager of Iran’s Bank Melli branch in Dubai and a Hong Kong facilitator, while the State Department vowed that Economic Outcast would continue “in full force.”

The financial offensive builds on a blockade that has already deprived Tehran of oil revenue while allowing growing volumes of its neighbors’ energy exports to move through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran had used the strait as one of its strongest sources of leverage since the conflict began, mining shipping lanes and threatening Gulf energy traffic. On Thursday, CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper announced that U.S. forces had cleared Iranian mines from the internationally recognized lanes and restored growing commercial traffic through them.


Nearly 1,500 vessels carrying roughly 750 million barrels of oil have moved through the strait even as Iran has exported nothing from its own shores since the U.S. blockade resumed in mid-July, according to CENTCOM. Ships entering or leaving Iranian ports remain subject to U.S. enforcement, apart from permitted humanitarian traffic.

Trump summed up the administration’s assessment of the operation in a phone interview published Friday.

“That sucker is open,” the president said of the strait.

Iran’s response, Trump added, has been “very mild” because “they don’t want us to go back at them.”

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