美财长称对伊制裁为经济D日，中国成关键变量

We absolutely can. The question is, will we? And the US government has historically been very reluctant to sanction any sort of meaningful entity in China. We've sanctioned smaller businesses in Hong Kong and the mainland, a couple small banks over the years, but really nothing that anyone's heard of. The question is, will the US move forward and go with, let's say, a Chinese financial institution, the conduit for China's purchase of Iranian oil, which they purchased roughly 80% of Iran's oil on the market.

So that's the big question mark this week. So when we heard from Secretary Benson regarding Operation Economic Outcast, what did you make of that? I mean, does that does this have any teeth? It just seems like Iran has been sanctioned more than anybody else, seemingly on the planet. Yet they keep keep on going. Okay, it's a little like Ted Knight waiting at the tee, but, um, you know, we've been we've been waiting for this for a while, but, I mean, these are the sanctions that The secretary spoke about earlier this week.

The U.S. could have done that since 2020. Um, this is not new authority. It's not new Leo. It's not new regulations to new position. The question is, will the U.S. make good on the threats we saw overnight? The Treasury Department announced discussions between the U.S. and Bahrain on the issue. The Fifth Fleet is housed in Bahrain, so they were never really in Iran. Proxy or relation? You know, will they go to Oman after what was announced this morning on this revenue sharing agreement?

That's almost a certainty. But China is the real linchpin here. China is their most important trading partner. Yeah. I'm not sure they necessarily will, at least at any significant scale. I mean, get down to the nitty gritty as only Dan Tannenbaum can do. So somebody decides we want to go after China. What do we actually do, Dan? We what you do is you sanction a Chinese financial Institution, not one of the state owned banks and not one that's large enough.

That's systemically important in China. Basically, a bank that someone's heard of that's not significant enough to hurt the global economy. And I think you heard the secretary mention in the last question during that presser, why haven't you done that? And his response was, well, I don't want to. Why would I blow up the global economy? That calibration is likely happening now to figure out what can you do? Um, that's significant enough.

That doesn't create unintended consequences. Like in 2018, when Oleg Deripaska was sanctioned in the US, briefly destabilized the world's aluminum sector for two weeks. So then President XI is scheduled to come and meet with President Trump in September. Um, how does that factor into all this? And they built that fun helipad for the visit. Well, I mean, that's certainly a part of this calculus. Now, what I'm hoping for and said, we think we've heard at some point hope is in the strategy, is that the president is leveraging his relationship with President XI to try and come up with a side deal to essentially push Iran, uh, or further away from China, based on the way China responded yesterday, overnight from the economic D-Day announcement on Monday.

I'm not so sure that's happening, but that's hugely playing in the minds of the administration right now to not disrupt the relative detente we've been experiencing. So that's the real question is what are they going to do? The secretary kind of teased a bank that could be sanctioned by the end of this week. We've still got a few more days left. So net net here. Um, it really comes down to China and how, I guess serious.

The United States wants to get to China, but boy, that brings into discussion a whole host of issues here. Is there a time frame that you're kind of thinking about? I mean, there is no time frame. We heard that from the secretary. There are other countries, to be clear. There's India. There is the UAE, which did announced last weekend that they were suspending trade with Iran, but it can't go to zero instantly. There's also Turkey, although interestingly, one of the Turkish banks was under criminal investigation for sanctions violation.

Um, that case was dropped by the DOJ in this administration. So it will be interesting to see where they go. There are other targets beyond China. There were sanctions designations made on Monday as part of this announcement, but none of them are really moving the needle. Dan so it's interesting here. You know, we get this economic, uh, operation economic outcast here. Um, does that suggest to you that military options by this administration are essentially off the table, at least for the near term?

I forget who reported it yesterday, but that is what it sounds like. I mean, the shift now is from the Department of Defense for, um, over to the Treasury Department to use sanctions and enforce them. That does seem like what the top of the administration is. And we've heard from the president directly that they're looking to squeeze Iran economically. But you said in the intro They've been under sanctions for 40 something years.

They're good at managing their existence under sanctions. Now, it's certainly getting harder in this environment since February. But it's not a slam dunk that this will happen instantly. It's interesting also because the domestic politics here, Dan, are kind of suggesting that I think probably most Americans, you know, are not supportive of the war doesn't certainly doesn't. Has not polled. Well, uh, and we've got midterm elections.

It seems like perhaps this president would like to get resolution of this thing sooner rather than later. And Iran knows that there are a savvy adversary. It's highly unlikely that there would be an agreement between the US and Iran before the midterms, because Iran is going to use whatever mechanisms they have left to inflict pain back on the U.S.. Um, as the driver of this for the West. So that is going to be a thing to watch, is will they even negotiate in good faith at this point, because they know that this is so deeply unpopular in the US.