US targets Iran’s airline industry as part of pressure campaign

Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

The Trump administration took sweeping actions against Iran’s airline industry on Tuesday as part of its pressure campaign on Tehran.

The latest sanctions hit 27 Iranian airlines and nine service providers and sales agents accused of providing services to Mahan Air, which has been sanctioned since 2011. Mahan Air is a private Iranian airline accused of providing key support to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The service providers and sales agents sanctioned Tuesday are in Turkey, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates.

“These jurisdictions have been on notice for some time, and now we’re moving quite directly to essentially cut off those operators from the Western financial system,” a Treasury official said Tuesday. It is not the first time the administration has targeted operators in other countries for allegedly supporting Mahan Air.

In addition, the US Treasury Department is “effectively today terminating all licenses that related to aviation,” the official said, including “payments for overflights of Iranian airspace, authorizations that have allowed non-US airlines that were flying US export-controlled airplanes into Iran.”

“We’ve also pulled back on a general license for safety and other emergency aviation support,” they said, noting they could consider such licenses on a case-by-case basis.

“Essentially, we’re taking the entire aviation sector of the Iranian economy out of the market,” they said.

The latest measures come as the administration seeks to cut off Tehran’s financial lifelines and stop its ability to fund the ongoing war. Administration officials like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have raised the prospect of regime change in connection to the sanctions.

Richard Nephew, a former US deputy special envoy for Iran, said the new airline sanctions “could be meaningful but mostly as a way of making it hard to engage in clandestine procurement and similar given the blockade” the US has maintained in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Tourism has dried up, not surprisingly, so this mainly hinders business and cargo transfers,” he told CNN. “If we take the next stop and threaten airports providing services, (it) could reduce overall transit.”

Still, experts and diplomats have questioned the overall impact the new sanctions campaign, dubbed “Operation Economic Outcast,” will have on Tehran, which has withstood decades of economic pressure.

The Treasury official on Tuesday claimed there are a “number of different economic indicators” and “a number of different anecdotes that we’re seeing that sort of suggest and sort of show the effect that this is having.”

There has also been deep skepticism from experts and diplomats that the US will take meaningful action against key Iranian partners like China.

“We have more in common with the Chinese on Iran than we disagree with them on,” Bessent said at an event on the sidelines of the G20 Finance Ministers meeting last week, referencing nuclear weapons and freedom of navigation.

Asked about conversations and possible points of agreement with Beijing, another Treasury official said Tuesday that Bessent has “had a number of conversations with lots of foreign counterparts about these issues, and some of those conversations are best kept private.”

“Just know that there is a level of progress being made, even if you may not see it publicly,” the official said without specifically referring to China.

卡洛斯·加西亚·罗林斯/路透社

周二，特朗普政府对伊朗航空业采取了全面行动，这是其对德黑兰施压行动的一部分。

最新制裁波及 27 家伊朗航空公司和 9 家服务提供商及销售代理商，他们被指控向自 2011 年以来一直受到制裁的马汉航空提供服务。马汉航空是一家伊朗私营航空公司，被指控向伊朗伊斯兰革命卫队提供关键支持。

周二受到制裁的服务提供商和销售代理商来自土耳其、马来西亚、哈萨克斯坦和阿拉伯联合酋长国。

“这些地区已经收到通知一段时间了，现在我们正采取直接行动，实质上切断这些运营商与西方金融体系的联系，”一位财政部官员周二表示。这并非美国政府首次以涉嫌支持马汉航空为由，对其他国家的运营商采取行动。

此外，这位官员表示，美国财政部“从今天起正式终止所有与航空相关的许可证”，包括“飞越伊朗领空的费用，以及允许非美国航空公司驾驶受美国出口管制飞机进入伊朗的授权”。

他们表示：“我们也取消了通用安全和其他紧急航空支持许可证的发放”，并指出他们可以根据具体情况考虑发放此类许可证。

他们说：“从本质上讲，我们正在将伊朗经济的整个航空业从市场中剥离出来。”

这些最新措施出台之际，美国政府正寻求切断德黑兰的财政命脉，阻止其为持续不断的战争提供资金。包括财政部长斯科特·贝森特在内的政府官员曾提出，制裁可能导致政权更迭。

美国前伊朗问题副特使理查德·内普休表示，新的航空公司制裁“可能意义重大，但主要目的是为了阻止秘密采购和类似活动，因为美国一直在霍尔木兹海峡实施封锁”。

“不出所料，旅游业已经萎靡不振，这主要阻碍了商务和货物转运，”他告诉CNN。“如果我们采取下一步行动，威胁机场提供服务，（这）可能会减少整体的过境运输量。”

不过，专家和外交官们仍然质疑这项名为“经济流放行动”的新制裁行动会对德黑兰产生怎样的总体影响，因为德黑兰已经承受了数十年的经济压力。

财政部官员周二声称，我们看到“许多不同的经济指标”和“许多不同的轶事”都表明并显示了这种情况正在产生的影响。

专家和外交官们也对美国是否会对中国等伊朗的重要伙伴采取有意义的行动深表怀疑。

贝森特上周在二十国集团财长会议间隙的一次活动上表示：“我们在伊朗问题上与中国的共同点比分歧要多。”他指的是核武器和航行自由问题。

当被问及与北京的对话以及可能达成的共识时，另一位财政部官员周二表示，贝森特“已经与许多外国同行就这些问题进行了多次对话，其中一些对话最好保密”。

“要知道，即使你可能不会在公众面前看到，但确实取得了一些进展，”这位官员说道，但他并没有具体提及中国。