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The White House's plan to hit Iran's economy landed softer than expected. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced 16 new sanction targets then gave everyone a window to comply. He didn't even mention China. It runs biggest oil buyer.
I'm a soul mart, and that's Le Lafato, and this is up first from NPR News.
[MUSIC] President Trump needs other countries to fall in line with his economic pressure campaign on Iran. The UAE has already cut ties. Will others follow suit? And the Supreme Court handed President Trump a temporary win in his fight against a mail-in voting. The court let Trump move ahead with an executive order.
But in my mail is still an option nationwide, but the legal fight is continuing with the mid-terms coming soon.
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on the MPHR app or wherever you get your podcasts. The Trump administration called it the economic D-Day for Iran, but unlike the surprise U.S. landing in France during World War II, this D-Day was more of a warning as to countries that sanctions are coming. Here's how Treasury Secretary Scott Besant put it in his news conference Monday. We are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior. Why would I want to blow up
the global financial system? The Trump administration has struggled to find an exit ramp to the war against Iran. Now it's trying to step up the financial pressure instead. Joining us to talk about this is NPR's diplomatic correspondent, Michelle. Call him in. Good morning, Michelle. Good morning, Leila. Okay, so the Trump administration calls this operation economic outcast. What's the plan here?
I mean, the U.S. wants to make the choices clear to Iran. It's either economic isolation and a subsistence economy or a path back to normal relations with the world.
“But the trouble is there are a lot of gray areas and that's what Besant is trying to deal with.”
He's warning countries that the U.S. knows how Iran is evading sanctions. He says the Treasury Department and these are his words have mapped every note, every facilitator, every network that Iran has used to smuggle oil and evade sanctions. And now the U.S. is looking at Iran's dealings in cryptocurrency, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping. The Treasury Secretary says no country or business is above the reach of U.S. sanctions.
Take a listen. We know who they are. They know who they are. So when the hammer of U.S. Treasury actions falls upon them, they will have no one to blame but themselves. He announced sanctions on 60 entities and individuals, but didn't say when that hammer of broader sanctions might hit major banks for instance in countries that continue to do business with Iran. Now, he didn't single out China Iran's biggest customer for oil or other countries
in public, right? Why not? Yeah. I mean, he said President Trump is having private diplomatic conversations with world leaders about all of this. And of course, China's President Xi Jinping is expected to visit the White House next month. And China views the U.S. sanctions as illegal. The Trump administration did add some Chinese companies to the blacklist, but it's not clear how far the Trump administration is really going to push China ahead of Xi's visit.
You know, most of this is really just a rebranded sanctions campaign at the moment. We're nearly six months into the U.S. is really war against Iran. It will be six months at the end of the week. So why this big talk about new economic pressure now? Yeah. I mean, the war has lasted much longer than President Trump initially predicted and remember when he started the war, he was telling Iranians who had been protesting the regime
that soon they're going to be able to take over their country and set a new course. But months later, we're seeing a hard end Iranian regime. It's been striking U.S. assets across the region in allied Gulf states and now threatening again to block all oil transit
Through the straight of her moves.
Not really, but take a listen to his message to ordinary Iranian soldiers. As more and more of your paychecks stop or supposedly just delayed, ask whether your commanders are leading a country to triumph or to ruin and recall that the Berlin Wall fell when ordinary soldiers decided not to shoot. So there they are again, a county non-regime change as a way to resolve this. But in the mean time,
they still need to find ways to reopen the straight-of-war moves. That's NPR's Michelle Kheleman. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you. NPR International correspondent Ayah Vatrawe in Dubai is also covering the latest round of U.S. sanctions. Good morning, Ayah. Good morning, Leyla. Okay, the United Arab Emirates where you are was
among the first two and out last week. It was cutting off commercial and trade ties with Iran.
“Are other countries joining Trump's economic pressure campaign?”
So reactions from other Gulf allies have so far been muted, you know, some already only had dismal trade ties with Iran before this war. Whereas the UAE was among Iran's top international trade partners, according to data by the World Trade Organization and the U.S. needs more countries to follow in line with these measures because while U.S. sanctions have crippled Iran's economy Trump wants to crush not just cripple its revenue in order to force a change.
Treasury Secretary Scott Besant says Trump's been phoning world leaders to join him in isolating Iran and he didn't name which leaders Trump called, but listed some of the ways that countries operate and what he calls the Grey Zone. Iran's enablers, purchase, transport its petroleum. They facilitate the flow of its finances through exchange houses and free trade zones. They welcome Iran's flights and maintain registries on its behalf. They turn a blind eye to
seaborn fuel transfers and overland transit. I'm listening to Besant's words there. What stands out to you? Well, what stands out isn't just that he called out the purchase of Iranian oil Alayla, but also welcoming flights from Iran and overland transit. And if we look at flights, there are still flights as of today on Iran air to Dubai connecting Iranians to the biggest airport in the world for international transit. And I checked flights on Iran's Mahan Air as
well this morning and it's flying to neighboring Oman as well as Turkey, Russia, China, even the tropical Thai holiday destination of Fukut. And as for overland transit's Pakistan, which has emerged as the lead mediator between Washington and Tehran in this war, has plans to expand
annual bilateral trade with Iran by more than threefold to $10 billion annually. During this war,
Pakistan also opened more land routes for non-sanctioned goods from other countries to enter Iran. But the most consequential country here is China, which is the biggest importer and buyer of Iranian oil. China's foreign ministry today slammed the White House's latest measures against Iran, calling them "elicit unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law." China says economic wars only escalate the conflict and disrupt global financial order,
and says it isn't going to cut off Iran. China has had to dig into its oil reserves to weather the fallout from the war as the biggest buyer of both Iranian and Saudi oil.
“And what have we heard from the Iranian government has been a reaction?”
Sure, I mean last night, Iran's economy minister Ali, Madhani Zaday brushed aside the White House's economic day.
"No, I don't know, Talash is the only calendar that's in my dad's lab.
Talash can't think it has been mad on me Iran." So that's him on state TV saying Iran's been planning this for a long time and is ready with a two-year plan to manage the fallout. And Iranian politicians, Leila, are casting this new economic offensive by Washington as evidence that the U.S. military offensive failed to cover Iran.
But I will say here, Iran's central bank chief did hint last week that the economic situation now is harder than it has been in decades with both oil revenues and taxes being affected. That's NPR as a betrallie in Dubai, thank you for your reporting. Thanks, Leila. The U.S. Supreme Court has handed President Trump a temporary win on his efforts to restrict
voting by mail. It involves how the U.S. Postal Service will deliver ballots for this fall's mid-term election, but the legal fight is not over. To break down the Supreme Court's decision, we're joined by NPR's Hansi Lewang, morning, Hansi.
Morning, Leila. Okay, so this lawsuit is based on an executive order that Trump signed in March. Where are we in this legal fight over that order? We are in the middle of this fight still. This new Supreme Court decision is not the final word that justices have not ruled
on whether President Trump's order is legal and so far, this order has not directly affected mail and voting.
“So what effect does yesterday's Supreme Court ruling actually have then?”
Well, here's a way to think about this. There have been two rulings from a judge in Boston. They both block the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out Trump's order to restrict voting by mail,
I should note U.
Now what the Supreme Court has done is pause the first of those two rulings.
“This first one blocked U.S. P.S. from working on Trump's order in about half of the states,”
plus Washington, D.C., but there is a second ruling that is still an effect and it's blocking U.S. P.S. across the country right now. What had Trump ordered the Postal Service to do? Trump basically called forward the Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on lists of mail and voters that states would have to turn over to U.S. P.S.
And Trump has said he issued this order to stop illegal voting by non-U.S. citizens, which many studies and audits have found to be extremely rare and by the way, Trump himself has voted by mail and Florida. And what did the Supreme Court actually say? What we have is an unsigned ruling from this conservative led court on procedural questions.
The court's three liberal justices descended, but the ruling basically says the judge and
Boston weighed in two early back in June by concluding that Trump's order over steps to President's authority under the Constitution and that U.S. P.S. has no legal authority to control mail and voting. The Trump administration argued it had not fully carried out the order, so it shouldn't be blocked and the Supreme Court agreed.
“And what are you hearing from the order's challengers?”
Well, we're weeks away from the start of mail and voting for the midterm elections. And I talked to Colorado's Democratic Secretary of State Jenner Griswell. Her state is one of the 23 suing over Trump's order and there is real concern about the possibility of Trump's order making a real mess of mail and voting for the midterms. The election process is already underway. This is a very close fight to the actual election,
but make no mistake on the federal government attempts to implement this unlawful executive order Colorado and other states across the country will fight back. Okay, so before you go, we should talk about what this means for voters. What should eligible voters take away from all of this? Yeah, at this point, it's really unclear what impact Trump's order will actually end up having.
And for now, the bottom line is voting by mail is still a viable option to all voters who are
eligible for it in their states. And U.S. P.S. is expected to deliver mail and bounce as usual. But lately that I'm going to keep watching these lawsuits. The Supreme Court said it's new ruling does not mean the implementation of Trump's order will be lawful. The court even wrote in its decision, quote, "On that score, time will tell." That's NPR's Hanzi Lowong, Hanzi. Thank you. And thanks for watching these lawsuits. I'm sure you'll
be back on to talk about that. You're very welcome, Leila. And that's up first for Tuesday, August 25th. I'm Leila Faldin. And I'm Michelle Martin. Today's episode of Up First was edited by James Hyder, Kate Bartlett, Ben Suesi, Mohammed Elver, D.C. and Ellis Wolfley. It was produced by Julie Depp and Brock and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Heines.
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