Frustrated on the military front by its war with Iran, the United States has announced an “Economic D-Day,” threatening to punish any country or entity that does business with Tehran in key industries.
The U.S. Treasury Department vowed to target Iran’s gold, digital assets and aviation industries, among others, aiming to throttle the few options Iran has left for global trade. Iran uses these sectors “to prop up its failing economy” and to “continue its campaign of destabilization and terrorism in the region and around the world,” the Treasury Department said in a statement on Monday.
Iranian officials dismissed the Trump administration’s pronouncement as bluster. Iran’s speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said in a statement on social media on Monday that Iran’s trading partners were not taking the new threats seriously.
The sweeping Treasury announcement left many questions, including how far the United States was willing to go to punish major Iranian trading partners, like China. And Iran has long found ways to circumvent such measures, including by trading with Russia and its neighbors in the region.
But though the declaration served as a warning to certain industries, it did not immediately blacklist all individuals and companies involved, providing time for negotiations. The threat of a more aggressive economic tack via new U.S. sanctions, however, came less than a week after the United Arab Emirates, one of Iran’s top trading partners, announced plans to halt all trade and financial transactions with the country.
Mahdi Ghodsi, an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, said the new generalized sanctions proposed by the United States stood to hit ordinary Iranians the hardest. As in war, Mr. Ghodsi said, “civilians are the casualties” in economic conflict.
Here are the sectors the United States has threatened with further sanctions.
Gold
The United States has enforced sanctions on Iran for decades. And before the first U.S. and Israeli missiles struck Iran on Feb. 28, economic suffering in the country was deep and widespread.
Some Iranians have turned to gold to protect their savings from a currency crisis and surging inflation. The precious metal is viewed as a safer asset than Iran’s currency, the rial, which hit record lows on Monday after the new U.S. threats of sanctions.
The nation’s central bank has also been loading up on gold for years. Over a four-month stretch in 2025, Iran imported more than $1 billion worth of gold, mostly from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and China, according to a leading Iranian economic newspaper.
But hoarding gold could further slow the economy, Mr. Ghodsi said, as more people could hold assets designed to preserve wealth long-term rather than exchange cash to keep the economy moving.
Digital Assets
Iran’s cryptocurrency sector is worth nearly $7.8 billion, according to 2025 estimates by Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis firm.
The same organization calculated that the volume of funds received by accounts affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps grew to more than $3 billion in 2025 from over $2 billion in 2024, based on data from U.S. and Israeli governments agencies.
Like gold, analysts say, alternative financial assets have become an important way for Iranian civilians to try to protect their wealth. The United States has also accused Tehran of using the technology to facilitate illicit cash flows.
“The Iranian regime increasingly turns to cryptocurrency as a tool of choice for sanctions evasion, supporting transactions linked” to the Revolutionary Guards, the Treasury Department said in its Monday statement.
The United States has targeted Iranian cryptocurrency firms before. In June, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Nobitex, accusing it of helping the government evade sanctions, pay for militant activities and transfer wealth abroad.
One person singled out in Monday’s announcement was Ivan Obukhov, a Ukrainian national based in the Emirates, who the Treasury Department said had “for years served as a broker for Iranian shadow fleet vessels” and had “facilitated Iranian oil shipments for the Iranian military and its proxies.”
He is accused of processing more than $100 million worth of cryptocurrency payments since 2023 to facilitate oil sales for the Revolutionary Guards.
Mr. Ghodsi, the economist, said the effectiveness of the proposed sanctions would depend on the United States’ ability to identify and isolate “nodes” in Iran’s network of cryptocurrency exchanges.
Aviation
Passenger flights are a lifeline for Iranians seeking to visit family outside the country. New sanctions could put other countries at risk of American reprisal if they allow Iranian commercial planes, some of which are affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, to land at their airports.
The Treasury Department says Iran uses its airlines to “ferry fighters, ship weapons and sensitive technologies, and move gold and hard cash to its proxies,” referring to Iran-backed militant groups in the region, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
While sanctions against Iran’s aviation industry target airlines inside the country, global air travel has continued to experience the effects of the conflict. The fighting caused flights to be diverted early in the war. And the hit to fuel prices may continue to raise the cost of plane tickets for the foreseeable future.
Shipping
The United States, which has been enforcing sanctions on Iran for decades, imposed a monthslong blockade on its shipments of oil, the nation’s economic engine.
But while Iran’s oil exports have taken center stage during the war, the country also relies on imports of machinery, electronics and other goods.
Its large domestic economy is self-sufficient in various sectors, Mr. Ghodsi said, but Iran still faces shortages of materials like steel, especially after U.S. strikes during the conflict damaged or destroyed critical infrastructure.
“Iran’s national shipping line regularly transports sensitive weapons components and missile precursors, while Iran’s national tanker service illicitly ships oil for the regime and its military services,” the Treasury Department said in its statement.
In July, the department targeted a suite of individuals and companies based outside Iran, accusing them of helping the country’s “shadow fleet” of ships to evade sanctions.
Technology
The Trump administration did not specify which countries, entities or goods would be targeted in the technological sector.
But the Treasury Department said Iran had imported advanced technologies for use in its weapons programs.
A 2025 analysis by Kharon, a trade analytics firm, found that an initiative run by the Iranian government had established a network of overseas companies that facilitated the trade of so-called dual-use military and civilian technology, despite U.S. sanctions.
