by Fred Fleitz
Pundits on cable news keep insisting that President Trump’s economic strangulation campaign against Iran cannot work. Sanctions, they say, have never brought down a regime. They note that Iran has survived decades of economic sanctions due to weak compliance and selling discounted oil through a shadow fleet, mostly to China.
That argument misses what is happening now. After the Iranian regime rejected President Trump’s diplomatic offers—including a generous Memorandum of Understanding and the substantial financial incentives that accompanied it—he turned to a different strategy. This is not another round of paper sanctions. It is a naval blockade, backed by asset seizures and targeted strikes. It does not merely ask governments and banks to comply. It stops tankers. That is why the campaign has a realistic chance of forcing a political rupture in Tehran that sanctions alone cannot produce.
The core pressure is blocking Iran’s oil revenue. Before the latest phase of the blockade, Iran was exporting over one million barrels per day. These shipments have been halted. No meaningful fresh crude is reaching China, Iran’s last major buyer. Combined losses from oil, products, and related maritime trade have been estimated to be $300 million–500 million per day. This is a devastating blow to the regime’s economic lifeline.
China will still buy whatever Iranian oil it can get. It will not replace what the U.S. Navy is blocking, and it will not make Tehran whole for the lost revenue. Beijing can buy Iranian oil sitting in Asian floating storage, but it cannot replenish that stock from Iranian oil terminals while American forces interdict the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian ports.
The Treasury Department has launched a bold campaign to cut Iran’s remaining economic lifelines. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has described the goal as economic asphyxiation: freeze IRGC and other Iranian elite accounts in places like the British Virgin Islands, target $100 million properties abroad, seize crypto wallets, and threaten secondary sanctions on anyone still doing business with the regime. The message is that luxury homes and offshore accounts funded by stolen oil money are no longer safe. Those assets, Bessent has said, should be returned to the Iranian people or to victims of terrorism.
These steps are already having an effect inside Iran. Some officials have signaled interest in a deal, citing economic collapse and reports that ordinary Iranians are going hungry. High inflation, unpaid security forces, and food-voucher politics are warning signs—especially after Iran’s central bank acknowledged that oil-export revenues had fallen toward zero. A regime that lives on patronage and repression needs cash. When the cash stops, factions start looking for an exit.
The military campaign is part of the same strategy. U.S. strikes have repeatedly targeted the radars, missile sites, and maritime assets Iran uses to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The latest attacks have been calibrated to prevent Tehran from rebuilding the sensors and launchers it needs to tax or sink oil tankers. Iran’s recent retaliatory strikes were another futile display of resistance. They caused little damage and were largely intercepted.
At home, the regime is doing what collapsing authoritarian governments typically do: tightening the vise. Executions have surged, including people charged with security offenses during the January mass protests. Parliament has moved to criminalize contact with Western media. This is not strength. It is a government that fears its own people talking to the outside world while shops are empty and oil sits unsold behind a U.S. blockade.
None of this guarantees a quick or orderly transition. Authoritarian regimes can endure misery for a long time if security services remain paid and cohesive. But the math confronting Tehran is brutal. A state that loses several hundred million dollars a day, cannot sell oil to its only major customer, sees its elites’ foreign properties be confiscated, and cannot rebuild the weapons it needs to defend itself or threaten its neighbors and shipping is not in a sustainable situation.
Sixty to ninety days of this pressure is a short interval in historical terms and a long one for a cash-starved security state. If the blockade holds, financial channels stay closed, and Iran cannot restore a credible threat to the strait, the choice facing Tehran’s remaining decision-makers becomes simpler: negotiate under duress or watch the country collapse. That is how President Trump’s economic strangulation strategy could work—if the United States stays with it over the coming months.
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Fred Fleitz previously served as chief of staff of the Trump National Security Council. He is the author of North Korea, Nuclear Brinkmanship, and the Oval Office, which was just released by Texas A&M Press.
