When President Donald Trump announced last week that he would subject Iran to unprecedented economic pressure, critics crowed that this shift was tantamount to an admission that the Operation Epic Fury had failed. Yet such a policy is not only completely consistent with the presidents approach during his first term, but has a significantly greater chance of working because of Epic Furys actual military success.
Now, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessents announcement of the so-called “D-Day” sanctions of Operation Economic Outcast, the pressure on Iran is about to become intolerable, giving Trump overwhelming leverage to force the nuclear deal he wants on Tehran.
Between 2019 and 2021, Trump directed the implementation of the Maximum Pressure The most aggressive sanctions program in modern history, it was designed to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon by starving it of the economic resources to build one.
TRUMPS ECONOMIC D-DAY CAN HAMMER IRAN, BUT WILL TEHRAN EVER SURRENDER?
All for the simple reason: Given the choice between doing business with the United States or Iran, any country that can add and subtract picked the U.S.
AMB GORDON SONDLAND: OUR ALLIES ENJOYED A FREE RIDE TRADING WITH IRAN. TRUMP IS SHUTTING THAT DOWN
What a contrast with the Biden administrations approach. When it chose to start negotiations for a new nuclear deal with Iran by preemptively ending enforcement of the sanctions rather than increasing the leverage these sanctions provided, Iran welcomed the relief but did not make any efforts to reach a deal. While inflation remained high, oil exports quickly rose to 1.6 million barrels a day, foreign currency reserves rose to $26 billion, and unemployment hit a record low of 7.2%.
Once again, these funds were poured into a ballooning military budget, an ever-more sophisticated nuclear program and regional terrorist proxies. What was spent domestically was not invested in drivers of economic growth but rather in food and fuel subsidies in an effort to mollify the Iranian people.
TRUMP BETS ECONOMIC PRESSURE CAN SQUEEZE IRAN AS REGIMES OWN FAILURES DEEPEN THE PAIN
When Trump returned to office in 2025, Iran had sponsored the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and made alarming progress toward a nuclear weapon. The president immediately directed the reimposition of Maximum Pressure, which rapidly took effect because the structural economic weakness caused during his first term had not been remedied. Inflation rose to 50% in the lead-up to the Twelve-Day War last year, after which the situation got considerably worse.
In the lead-up to Operation Epic Fury, inflation in Iran was at 50% and accelerating, the rial was around 1.87 million to the dollar, one major bank had collapsed, and five others were in trouble, nationwide protests had been brutally suppressed but not resolved and foreign exchange channels were narrowing. The war compounded these problems through the destruction of energy infrastructure, notably at Kharg Island and the South Pars gas field, as well as petrochemicals facilities.
