Trump administration sanctions all Iranian airlines in aviation crackdown
The Trump administration on Tuesday announced it is sanctioning 27 Iranian air carriers in a bid to deny the government in Tehran the ability to move "weapons, personnel, and illicit cargo", the Treasury said in a statement.
The move is part of Operation Economic Outcast, the expanded sanctions project that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said is meant to choke off Iran's access to the global economy.
The US first sanctioned an Iranian commercial airline, Mahan Air, in 2011.
"Let this be a warning to anyone doing business with Iran’s remaining airlines, all of which we sanctioned today: You are at risk of being cut off from the global financial system," Bessent said on Tuesday.
The carriers include Ava Airlines, Fly Persia, and Mehr Airways.
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The Treasury named 36 targets in all to the blacklist, including what it described as "covert front companies, foreign intermediaries, and deceptive transshipment routes that Iran relies on to obtain US-origin aircraft and sensitive technology".
Those include UAE-based ECT Aviation Support LLC, its UAE-based chief, the Egyptian national Ibrahim Ali Mohamed Mohamed Mahran, and Turkey-based Sky Phoenix.
The US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a global alert asking financial institutions to report procurement networks supporting Iran’s aviation industry.
Its Office of Foreign Assets Control also suspended authorisations that previously allowed non-US airlines to operate a route or a US-made jet that would eventually fly into Iran, potentially complicating travel for Iranian Americans with families in Iran and denying Tehran the ability to collect overflight fees.
"Any person that assists Iran’s aviation sector, from the provision of general sales agent services through to support to Iran’s covert aircraft procurement schemes, will be held accountable," the Treasury said.
Sanctioned individuals and entities will have all their US assets frozen and will be denied access to the US-dominated global banking system. Americans and US residents are prohibited from assisting sanctioned parties.
'Asphyxiation'
Last month, Bessent announced a new sanctions project against Iran and its "enablers", towards what he described as an "asphyxiation of this regime" amid the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz.
"Iran now faces a very clear choice, with only two paths before them: complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back to normalcy with an opportunity to rejoin the global economy," Bessent told reporters in Washington, DC.
It remains unclear how "a path to normalcy" may work, given the Trump administration has only ever tightened sanctions on Iran since its first iteration in the White House in 2017.
"We are launching Operation Economic Outcast to foreclose every other option available to the Iranian regime," Bessent declared. "America is no longer managing the Iranian threat. We are ending it."
Using a "zero-leakage approach", he said the Treasury had "mapped every node, every facilitator, and every network that Iran has used to smuggle oil and evade sanctions", and that President Donald Trump had already made phone calls to counterparts around the world "with specific requests to cease their interactions with the regime".
He would not name those countries.
When pressed on why the sanctions were not in place with immediate effect, Bessent replied: "Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?"
"Every country has a defined timeline to shut down activities we have identified. If they do not take action, we will do so unilaterally through Treasury authorities," he said.
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