Donald Trump’s new administration will revive the policy of “maximum pressure” to “bankrupt” Iran’s ability to finance regional proxies and develop nuclear weapons, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Trump’s foreign policy team will seek to impose sanctions on Tehran, including on the country’s vital oil exports, once the president-elect returns to the White House in January, according to sources cited by the publication.

“He is determined to bring back the maximum pressure strategy to bankrupt Iran as quickly as possible,” said a national security expert familiar with Trump’s transition policy.

The plan would mark a shift in US foreign policy at a time of turmoil in the Middle East after the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas sparked a wave of regional hostilities and turned Israel’s shadow war with Iran into open conflict.

Trump sent the message during his election campaign that he wants a deal with Iran. “We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal,” he said in September.

Pressure to force Iran into talks

People familiar with Trump’s intentions said the maximum pressure tactic would be used to try to force Iran into talks with the US — though experts believe that is a long-term goal.

The president-elect ran a “maximum pressure” campaign in his first term after abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers that imposed hundreds of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

In response, Tehran has increased its nuclear activity and is enriching uranium near weapons-grade levels.

Sanctions remained in place during the Biden administration, but analysts say he has not applied them as tightly as he sought to revive the Iran nuclear deal and defuse the crisis.

Iran’s crude oil exports have more than tripled in the past four years, from a low of 400,000 b/d in 2020 to more than 1.5 million b/d so far in 2024, with almost all shipments going to China, according to US Energy.

Trump’s transition team is drafting executive orders he could issue from his first day in the Oval Office to target Tehran, including tightening and adding new sanctions on Iranian oil exports.

“If they do go ahead . . . they could knock Iran’s oil exports down to a few hundred thousand barrels a day,” said Bob McNally, president of consulting firm Rapidan Energy and a former energy adviser in the George W. Bush administration.

He added that “it is their main source of income and their economy is already much more fragile than it was then . . . they are in a much worse situation than the first term”.

Trump advisers have urged the incoming president to move quickly on the Tehran issue, with sources saying the new US leader will make it clear “that we will take the imposition of sanctions on Iran very seriously”.

Mike Waltz, Trump’s new national security adviser, helped pass legislation while a member of the House of Representatives that would impose secondary sanctions on Chinese purchases of Iranian crude. The bill has not passed the Senate.

The maximum pressure campaign is designed to reduce Iran’s revenue and stop building up its military or funding proxy groups in the region, but ultimately the goal is to persuade Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear deal and change its regional policies, the article says.

Among Trump’s national security team are officials such as incoming secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Waltz, who have advocated an aggressive approach toward Iran.

“Just four years ago. . . Their currency was sinking. . we have to get back to it,” Waltz said during an October event at the Atlantic Council.

Iran warns that the strategy will fail

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghtsi this week urged the Trump team not to test maximum pressure again.

“Attempting ‘Maximum Pressure 2.0’ will only lead to ‘Maximum Defeat 2.0,'” he told X , referring to Iran’s nuclear advances in the years since Trump abandoned the deal. “Better idea: try ‘Maximum Wisdom’ – for everyone’s benefit.”

Iran’s new government, led by reformist President Massoud Pezeghian, has said it wants to reach out again to the West in a bid to secure sanctions relief to boost the country’s struggling economy.

After holding talks with Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog in Tehran on Thursday, Araghtsi posted on X that Tehran was willing to negotiate “based on our national interest and our inalienable rights, but NOT ready to negotiate under pressure and intimidation! “

Even if both sides are willing to talk, the chances of progress are slim.

“The big question is whether Ayatollah Khamenei would be willing to make a nuclear and regional deal with the man who killed Qassem Soleimani,” said Karim Shajadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“It is difficult to envision a nuclear or regional agreement that would be acceptable to both the prime minister of Israel and the supreme leader of Iran,” he added.