United States President Donald Trump and his treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, are now working in tandem trying to squeeze Iran`s economy and render that country an outcast in the global economic community.
Last week, they launched the so-called Operation Economic Outcast—also termed Economic D-Day—threatening all nations which are doing business with Iran with severe secondary sanctions.
Bessent’s announcement included the imposition of new sanctions on 60 Iran-linked entities, including corporations, vessels and individuals. He called it a “warning shot” and said harsher sanctions are on the table if countries do not comply.
US officials are long in words but short in action. While Bessent insisted that the United States would “sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone,” it has yet to do so.
It is not a secret that China buys 90 percent of Iran's oil, and being America`s competitor in the global economic and political stages, it is easy to deduce that Operation Economic Outcast is designed not just to punish Iran into submission but also to squeeze China.
Even as China`s bulk carriers transporting crude from Iran to its ports, refineries and storage tanks, along with Chinese banks that finance this most important trade, are awaiting the details of the announced secondary sanctions, no such hostile moves have materialized.
The treasury department just added another teapot refinery in Shandong to its list of Chinese companies included in the sanctions. This is a calculated move, coming as it was a couple of weeks before President Xi Jinping's state visit to Washington to meet with Trump and discuss the world`s problems.
The latest report was that Beijing chafed at the United States` efforts to pressure it into compliance, with the Chinese foreign ministry saying that it continues to oppose unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law or the authorization of the United Nations Security Council.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said: “Economic warfare and maximum pressure provide no solution. On the contrary, they only serve to fuel tensions and lead to risk spillover, which will disrupt the global economic and financial order, and harm the legitimate rights and interests of other countries.”
Since the US threat is aimed at any nation or entity continuing to trade with Iran, we are also involved. The Philippines is one of these countries. We are not exempted despite the EDCA sites and the Mutual Defense Treaty, and the planned Pax Silica which are all advantageous to the US.
Sixty-six million dollars might not be much—that was the amount of goods the Philippines exported to Iran in 2024, up from $38 million the year before—but this total will still drag downward the already concerning Balance of Payments the country reported last week. Our imports from Iran were under $190,000, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Note that our BoP deficit in July was the lowest in eight months.
The American propensity to weaponize the dollar and impose sanctions on other nations reveals its greed for power and hostility toward humanity.
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