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Experts react: Will Trump’s Operation Economic Outcast isolate Iran? - Atlantic Council
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Original Article
Experts react: Will Trump’s Operation Economic Outcast isolate Iran? - Atlantic Council
Tehran is the target—but its facilitators and friends are caught in the crosshairs. On Monday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the start of Operation Economic Outcast, a suite of sanctions, economic tools, and enforcement actions intended “to sever every remaining economic lifeline sustaining” the Iranian regime. In his remarks, Bessent compared the effort to D-Day during World War II.
Will it isolate Iran? Who is extending these lifelines? And how might Iranian forces retaliate? Below, Atlantic Council experts share their insights on the news.
Click to jump to an expert analysis:
Daniel Fried: It’s not nothing, but it’s no D-Day
Maia Nikoladze: Beijing is the biggest question
Andrew L. Peek: Trump’s deterrence gives sanctions their bite
Nate Swanson: The war has entered a race to the bottom
Dexter Tiff Roberts: China is preparing a hardline response
Khalid Azim: Effectiveness should be measured against objective
Jonathan Panikoff: Maximum pressure still needs staying power
Thomas S. Warrick: Economic D-Day needs an Eisenhower
Daniel Fried is the Weiser family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former US assistant secretary of state for Europe.
It’s not nothing, but it’s no D-Day
The new Iran sanctions that Bessent rolled out Monday afternoon were, in Bessent’s own words, “a warning shot,” not an economic death blow. The sanctions announced are to target Iranian, Chinese, and other countries’ firms, as well as ghost-fleet tankers and other legitimate targets. But none of the moves was a game changer. The rhetoric was ferocious, but the punch less so, though Bessent promised more was coming (including sanctions on a “major financial institution” later this week).
Dealing a crippling blow to Iran’s economy would probably require taking on major Chinese firms and banks, and no such steps were taken today. One interesting “tell”: Asked why his announcement today was more warning than action, Bessent responded that he didn’t want to “ blow up the global financial system.” That’s revealing: the United States is threatening action against third countries that don’t break economic ties with Iran, but doing so involves costs and risks that Bessent suggested he isn’t eager to bear.
While it’s easy to dismiss today’s announcements as mere bluster, it appears that some in the administration are aware that a quick, big win over Iran using force isn’t likely and are trying to move back to something sustainable and longer term. That’s a rational call. Iran’s weaknesses will grow over time. But such a walk back will not be easy to maintain, especially for an administration known for impatience and volatility.
Maia Nikoladze is a deputy director at the Atlantic Council’s Economic Statecraft Initiative within the GeoEconomics Center.
Beijing is the biggest question
On August 24, a day dubbed an “ economic D-Day ” against the Iranian regime, the Treasury Department designated about sixty entities based in Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Singapore, and other third countries for facilitating Iran-related sanctions evasion. These entities are believed to have helped sanctioned Iranian companies launder proceeds from oil sales, procure sensitive technologies, and facilitate the operations of Iran’s shadow fleet. The designations follow earlier sanctions this year targeting Iran’s shadow banking networks by the Treasury as part of Operation Economic Fury.
In terms of their potential effects, these sanctions target the usual suspects—front and shell companies in jurisdictions well known to serve as evasion and transshipment hubs. Perhaps the more consequential action is yet to come, given Bessent’s warning that sanctions could target a major financial institution .
The rising diplomatic pressure ahead of today’s announcement may have already prompted a response. Last week, the UAE said that it will halt trade and financial transactions with Iran. The UAE had previously announced crackdowns on Iran’s evasion networks, so the extent of its follow-through will be an early test.
The biggest question is Beijing’s response, since Chinese refineries have been absorbing nearly 90 percent of Iranian oil. The Trump-Xi meeting is just weeks away. It’s unclear whether the financial institution Bessent suggested could be sanctioned by the end of the week will be Chinese. However, with the one-year US-China truce that paused US tariffs on China and Chinese bans on critical minerals set to expire this fall, any perceived economic escalation by the United States could prompt Chinese countermeasures, particularly in critical minerals.
Andrew L. Peek is the director of the Adrienne Arsht National Security Resilience Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center.
Trump’s deterrence gives sanctions their bite
Trump’s sanctions on Iran have been historically effective because of his perceived willingness to prioritize economic pressure over anything else in bilateral relationships. The main economic pressure tool available is secondary sanctions—sanctions on foreign entities that engage with an Iranian entity. The laws governing these sanctions were the same under both Trump and President Barack Obama, and Obama had a global coalition and the United Nations behind him. Trump did not, yet he still forced oil exports from Iran to a historic low .
The reason was that his implementation was much different. Those entities—including state-owned companies in China, Europe, India, and elsewhere—genuinely believed that Trump would sanction them regardless of the diplomatic consequences. This is still true. It may be even more true today than it was eighteen months ago. The president engenders a tremendous amount of deterrence.
Bessent and the rest of the Trump administration are thus starting with a very strong hand. The task now is implementation. It is a challenging diplomatic assignment. In Iraq, the Gulf, China, and elsewhere, entities that deal with Iran have been navigating secondary sanctions for thirty years . They are hedged and do not scare easily. Trump’s envoys thus need to engage the remaining sanctions holdouts and deliver a cease-and-desist message without allowing that deterrent effect to get lost in diplomatic niceties. And there will probably need to be an example.
Lastly, as I argued on Friday, Iran’s leaders will shoot back before they starve. Iran will escalate militarily against its neighbors in the face of this sanctions pressure to prevent them from complying fully. Iran will try to force Iraq and the Gulf states to hedge and allow money to keep flowing. The effects will be limited, since Iran is not exporting oil by ship, but Tehran will try to scrounge enough dollars from its neighbors to survive and outlast this effort.
Nate Swanson is a resident senior fellow and director of the Iran Strategy Project with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.
The war has entered a race to the bottom