President Trump has announced what he described as a sweeping new economic campaign against Iran, escalating his rhetoric toward Tehran and warning that any nation or institution that helps sustain Iran’s economy will face severe consequences.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Iran had repeatedly been given the opportunity to reach a deal and had failed to take it. He said he was therefore launching what he called the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country. Trump described Iran’s military as effectively dismantled, saying its navy has been eliminated, its air force destroyed, its military factories reduced to rubble, and its currency rendered worthless, and added that the country is hanging by a thread.

The core of the announcement was a warning directed well beyond Iran’s borders. Trump said any country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any form of lifeline to Iran would itself face significant economic consequences. He specifically named oil smuggling, currency swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, and front companies as channels that must stop immediately, saying those involved know who they are.

Trump framed the campaign as an economic D-Day and called on US allies to join Washington in isolating and defeating what he called the Iran threat. He described the planned measures as historic steps intended to cripple Tehran’s ability to project terror internationally. The framing revives the maximum pressure playbook of Trump’s first term, launched after the 2018 US withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, when sanctions on buyers, shippers, and insurers drove Iran’s crude exports down to a fraction of their former levels. The new warning goes further, explicitly threatening consequences not just for individual firms but for entire countries whose financial and transport systems touch Iran.

The announcement comes against a backdrop of already elevated tension in the region, with oil prices having climbed for several consecutive sessions amid uncertainty over Strait of Hormuz shipping and the broader state of the US-Iran conflict. The strait normally carries roughly a fifth of the world’s traded oil, making the waterway a long-standing focal point for global energy markets. A push to target intermediaries facilitating Iranian oil exports and financial transactions would add another layer of enforcement pressure, including secondary sanctions risk on top of the direct military and shipping disruptions already affecting markets. That includes the kind of quiet Hormuz shipping activity reported by Axios earlier. Secondary sanctions of this kind threaten third-country banks, shippers, and traders with loss of access to the US financial system unless they cut ties with the target, the mechanism Washington previously used against buyers of Iranian crude.

Trump also warned that any country, bank, or shipping entity aiding Iran could face sanctions, raising the risk of further disruption to flows that may currently be moving through informal or covert channels. China has been the primary destination for Iranian crude in recent years, with much of it moved by tankers operating outside Western insurance and tracking systems, often via ship-to-ship transfers and disguised origins. If the measures are aimed at intermediaries used by China, Russia, or Gulf states to move Iranian crude, the result could be tighter effective supply regardless of formal Hormuz transit volumes. How far the campaign reaches in practice will depend on whether Washington publishes specific designations against named banks, registries, or trading houses, and on how governments whose companies still deal with Iran respond.

Trump closed the post by reiterating a long-standing US red line, saying Iran will never be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon.