US Sanctions Threat: Behind Iran’s Fresh Rallying Cry Against ‘Same Bull’

Iran has slammed proposed US sanctions to choke it as a “complete erosion of sovereignty” after President Donald Trump‘s reported threat to impose punishment on countries facilitating trade or doing business with Tehran.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in a post on X that Trump’s threatshould be seen as a challenge posed against member states of the United Nations.

In the X post Baghaei termed the US announcement on economic sanctions as “an assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty” against the United Nations’ member states.

Baghaei said no nation can compel foreign banks, enterprises or airports to renounce commerce with Iran, Al Jazeera reported.

“The end result would be the complete erosion of sovereignty as the foundational basis of the UN-based inter-State system, and a recipe for an abysmal return to full-scale classic colonialism,” Baghaei said in the post.

Such secondary sanctions find no foundation in international law, according to Baghaei.The sanctions violate the “principle of sovereign equality enshrined in Article 2(1) of the UN Charter and breach the customary prohibition on intervention affirmed by the International Court of Justice in the Nicaragua case,” he said.

Baghaei also flayed the US action by saying “economic coercion designed to force a sovereign State to alter its lawful policy choices constitutes an outright internationally wrongful act.”

In other words, Iran is trying to rally international opinion against what it sees as the perceived discriminatory tariffs and sanctions regime, backed to the hilt by the Trump administration, as a tool to spur a rallying cry against US actions globally. Tehran hopes that such a step would, in effect, put the US administration in an isolated position globally.

Iran could also be trying to foster an anti-incumbency wave that may lead to significant setbacks to the Trump-led Republican party, which is facing an uphill battle in the November midterms. US Voters are as increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration on many counts, including inflationary concerns stoked by the protracted Iran war, according to many polls.

Trump had on Wednesday announced a “most crushing economic operation” against Iran, indicating that any country whose institutions facilitate business or trade with Tehran would face “tremendous economic consequences”.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also echoed Trump, saying the fresh sanctions regime is aimed to “collapse” Iran.

Bessent said that in this military and economic battle against Iran, the other countries are “either with us or against us.”.

Iranian state media reports also latched on to the raging debate, and said sanctions were nothing new for the Islamic Republic.

A defiant Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the new measures were “bound to fail”.

“We have seen this movie before,” Araghchi posted on X, alongside a screenshot of a tweet from former President Barack Obama referencing earlier sanctions in 2012. “Same bull. Different bullies.”

The latest rhetorical onslaught between backers and opponents of Iran and the US also comes amid a virtual collapse of the peace talks.

There has been no reported significant progress in backroom diplomacy by many international players, including Pakistan and Qatar. Frustrated by the lack of progress on that count, the US had also reportedly prodded the foreign minister of Austria to hold backchannel diplomacy in an effort to force Tehran to come back to the negotiating table.

Iran continues to dictate terms in the Strait of Hormuz, a contentious waterway through which a fifth of the world’s energy cargoes were shipped before the US-Israeli strikes on Iran began late in February.

The US enforced naval blockade against Iran’s ports is also on. Oil shipment through the Strait of Hormuz has virtually come to a halt, according to the Al Jazeera report.

“They would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal in my opinion,” Trump said Tehran’s intentions on Friday.

Iran has granted permission for several Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the Hormuz strait following repeated requests from Baghdad, state news agency IRNA ⁠reported on Saturday.