Inside Trump’s Economic War on Iran
Treasury sanctions target the regime’s oil and gas revenue by restricting its access to cryptocurrency.
By Michael Faulkender and Robert Wilkie
Avishek Das/Zuma PressAs the U.S. works to eliminate the threats from the Iranian regime, the economic dimension is as crucial as the military one.
The U.S. initiated Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28 to target Iran’s nuclear sites, ballistic-missile facilities and command centers.
On April 16, the Pentagon, in coordination with the Treasury, announced Operation Economic Fury, a campaign cutting off the regime’s global terror financing and revenue streams.
This economic stranglehold may be the best way to build leverage over the Iranian regime while further eroding its ability to escalate.
Operation Economic Fury has two main parts: a sanctions campaign, coordinated by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, that restricts the financial and logistical flows to the regime, and a naval blockade that restricts all vessels entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas.
As of May 23, the naval blockade has redirected more than 100 vessels and involved more than 15,000 troops.
The blockade primarily aims at a key pressure point: Iran’s energy revenue.
Oil and natural gas account for 82% of Iranian export revenue, funding the regime’s military, nuclear program and proxies.
It has been more than a decade since Iran was first cut off from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, the messaging infrastructure of the global banking system.
With conventional banking options closed, the regime has increasingly relied on cryptocurrency to move capital across borders, finance proxies, procure weapons and deliver drones to America’s adversaries.
Iran’s nearly $8 billion crypto ecosystem is growing, and Treasury has moved aggressively to constrict it at the point where crypto must be converted into usable currency, such as dollars.
On June 2, OFAC labeled several exchanges Specially Designated Nationals, including Iran’s largest, Nobitex, along with Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex.
Together these platforms account for 72% of Iranian crypto inflows.
An SDN designation freezes any assets the targets hold within U.S. jurisdiction and bars all U.S. persons and companies from dealing with them.
Because OFAC grounded its actions in counterterrorism authorities, foreign financial institutions that continue doing business with the designated entities risk secondary sanctions.
These exchanges, along with the over-the-counter desks that broker crypto block trades privately, are indispensable to the regime.
Moving tens of millions of dollars in crypto at a time across an open exchange is conspicuous and drives the price down against the seller.
Iran depends on this infrastructure to convert export revenue into the currency that sustains its proxies and weapons programs.
Digital wallet addresses tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are estimated to have accounted for more than half of all the value that Iran’s crypto ecosystem received in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The designated exchanges are where that value primarily moves.
Just as the naval blockade chokes the physical flow of oil out of Iranian ports, OFAC’s designations choke the digital flow of revenue, denying the regime the conversion point where rials and crypto become deployable dollars.
Yet entry paths to exchanges can be rebuilt.
To combat this, the U.S. should exploit a choke point one level deeper.
Whatever path Iranian funds take, they almost inevitably touch the dollar, in practice through dollar-pegged stablecoins, principally Tether, favored for its global liquidity.
Tether can freeze and blacklist an address on request, putting regime money routed through it within reach of OFAC and the issuer acting together.
That happened in late April when Tether, in coordination with OFAC, froze roughly $344.2 million across two crypto wallet addresses, linked to the IRGC-Quds Force and Hezbollah.
Naming the entities and executives behind these networks compounds the effect.
It signals to every counterparty transacting with a designated party that it could be next, inducing it to sever its ties to Iranian-linked finance.
The military successes of Epic Fury seriously weakened Iran.
But ending the regime’s nearly five decades of aggression against the American people and others around the world requires cutting off the financial networks on which that global terror infrastructure depends.
Treasury must sustain its conviction that properly deployed, economic power profoundly complements traditional military and diplomatic tools.
Mr. Faulkender served as deputy Treasury secretary (2025) and is co-chair of the America First Policy Institute’s Center for American Prosperity. Mr. Wilkie served as secretary of veterans affairs (2018-21) and is co-chair of AFPI’s Center for American Security.
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