A top Iranian official said on Friday that his country would seek to dampen the effect of economic sanctions after the Trump administration vowed to aggressively tighten its pressure campaign against Tehran.
“We must plan for the unjust sanctions so that we can overcome them,” the Iranian official, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is the lead negotiator in talks with the United States, told a gathering of Iranian and Iraqi business representatives in Baghdad, according to a post on his social media channel.
He did not elaborate on how Iran might circumvent further sanctions, after President Trump promised this week to hit the country with an “economic D-Day.” Yet as Tehran braces for the potential for more conflict, Mr. Ghalibaf’s comment was one of the most direct acknowledgments from Tehran in recent days that sanctions were hurting and needed to be managed.
The United States has already imposed debilitating sanctions on Iran’s economy and leadership, and the Trump administration has previously imposed sanctions on foreign businesses and organizations that trade with Tehran. But Washington suggested this week that officials were preparing measures to target countries that buy Iranian oil.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is expected to detail the new measures at a news conference on Monday, wrote on social media on Thursday evening, “Any remaining tie to Tehran will hasten a nation’s economic oblivion, whether that tie be purposefully constructed or willfully ignored.”
Iran has weathered decades of U.S. sanctions since the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic republic to power, by trying to diversify its economy, developing smuggling routes, and finding new markets, especially for oil.
Most recently, it has attempted to bypass an ongoing American naval blockade by expanding overland trade.
President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran said earlier this month that the number of trains entering the country from China had gone from one a week to three a day, and that Iran was also trying to increase trade through Azerbaijan and other countries in the region.
On Thursday, Shamseddin Hosseini, chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s economic commission, said that it was important for Iran to reduce reliance on its southern ports, where the U.S. blockade is in place, and to expand trading routes across the land border in the northeast, according to Iranian state media.
“To get out of the current situation, the path of economic policymaking must be changed,” Mr. Hosseini said, according to the reports.
Those efforts are unlikely to make up for the sheer amount of goods that used to enter Iran through its southern ports.
Davoud Rangi, the vice-chair of the import management committee of Tehran’s Chamber of Commerce, told an Iranian news outlet this month that border authorities had quickly become overloaded when Iran recently tried to bring more goods in overland from Turkey and Pakistan. The rail system could help funnel goods into Iran, he added, but only to a point.
“Every year, perhaps 400 to 500 ships carrying basic goods enter the country,” Mr. Rangi was quoted as saying by Eghtesad News, which focuses on the economy. Importing all those goods by land would require a “frightening number” of trucks, he added.
Mr. Trump’s recent threats of economic escalation suggest a reluctance to return to the full-blown military confrontation with Iran, which began in February with a large-scale U.S.-Israeli attack.
In Baghdad, Mr. Ghalibaf told the business representatives, “The Americans and Israelis have realized that they cannot prevail against Iran and Iraq in conventional military warfare.”
“Therefore,” he added, “they have entered into cognitive warfare and economic warfare, and now you are the soldiers and commanders on this battlefield.”
Since a cease-fire in June, the war has settled into an uneasy standoff with little sign of diplomatic progress. Iranian hard-liners argue in favor of maintaining an aggressive posture, whereas moderates, like Mr. Pezeshkian, say Iran should take advantage of its effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for energy exports, and reach a deal.
“It is better that we bring the war to an end now as we are in a position of power and dignity,” Mr. Pezeshkian told a gathering of doctors in Tehran on Friday, according to Iranian state media.
Analysts say that broader sanctions targeting Iran’s ability to export oil would compound the country’s economic challenges — a sensitive issue for the authorities, which earlier this year faced a nationwide protest movement sparked by a spiraling currency crisis.
The war and the U.S. blockade of the country’s ports have crippled important industries, and Iranians are contending with sky-high inflation.
This week, the United Arab Emirates, a major trading hub for Iran, announced that it was halting all trade and financial transactions with Tehran. Analysts say that the Emirates has been key to Iranian efforts to evade international sanctions, though Emirati officials deny that.
China, Iran’s largest trading partner, could be one of the countries most affected by U.S. penalties on importers of Iranian oil. For years, Beijing has defied Western sanctions by buying as much as 90 percent of Tehran’s oil exports, though that amount still represents a marginal share of China’s total oil imports, analysts say.
Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Friday that his country opposed “unilateral sanctions” and called for the sides to resolve their differences through diplomacy.
The Trump administration has also taken aim at Iran’s allies in the region. On Thursday, Washington said Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon, would be designated an affiliate of the Iranian authorities under the command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The announcement came along with the issuing of sanctions against 10 individuals accused of working to smuggle cash to the militia.
The United States has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization since 1997 and has long accused the group of being an Iranian proxy. The latest announcement appeared to formalize Washington’s view that the group was a direct arm of Iran in the Middle East. In a statement on Friday, Hezbollah rejected the designation.
Leily Nikounazar and Yeganeh Torbati contributed reporting.