How US sanctions on Iran ripple through global markets and consumers

Notably, the administration of United States President Donald Trump has confirmed new economic sanctions on Tehran, describing the measures as an "economic D-Day" as the US war on Iran approaches the six-month mark.

Key points

• After students took hostages at the US Embassy in Tehran, and rose over the next 45 years, washington's sanctions on Iran have been in place since 1979.
• Chevron is down 0.8 percent, ExxonMobil tumbled 0.9 percent, BP fell more than 2 percent, and Shell is down 0.2 percent.
• In December 2025, Washington sanctioned 29 vessels it accused of being part of a so-called shadow fleet applied to transport Iranian petroleum.
• In February 2025, the Treasury Department sanctioned 30 individuals and vessels involved in the "brokering the sale and transportation of Iranian petroleum-related products", according to a department release.
• US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the sanctions on Monday, alongside a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

Bessent remarked the sanctions target key sources of Iran's revenue, including its oil and gas industry, and called on countries worldwide to cut economic ties with Tehran. What are the sanctions?

As well as impose sanctions on 60 specific individuals and vessels, the Treasury Department remarked the sanctions will target Iran's aviation, digital assets, gold, technology and shipping sectors.

"The main point is that Iran seems to have much less room than it did in previous years to simply work around sanctions, " Peiman Salehi, a Tehran-based geopolitical analyst, informed Al Jazeera.

Bessent additionally stated on Monday that the new sanctions expose Tehran's trade partners to secondary penalties. According to a Treasury Department release on Monday, the targets include ships based in or associated with countries including Singapore, China, and Hong Kong.

"Today's sanctions are mostly incremental, but are part of trying to intimidate remaining trading partners into cutting ties, " remarked Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank.

"There's a lot of signalling and bluster aimed at getting other countries to crack down on entities involved in grey-zone trade, but new measures are mostly incremental for now, " she remarked. Grey-zone trade refers to both illegal, underground trade and trade that is unsanctioned but tough.

Notably, the Treasury Department remarked Iran has employed cryptocurrency to circumvent its longtime sanctions and facilitate transactions involving the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and members of the Iranian regime. The department additionally stated Iran has applied gold to assist prop up the value of its currency against the backdrop of economic instability.

In practice, the new shipping sanctions target Iran's state-linked shipping fleet. It the Treasury Department alleges is being applied to transport oil as well as "sensitive weapons components".

For context, the technology sanctions are intended to restrict Iran's acquisition of materials that could be applied in its weapons programmes. As well as financial resources to Iran's proxies, the aviation sanctions target Iranian airlines that the Treasury Department alleges are being applied to transport weapons and military personnel.

Washington additionally indefinitely suspended a number of broad exceptions to its ongoing sanctions on Iran, including those covering academic exchanges, personal funds transfers and certain sporting activities. Organisations at present engaged in those activities have until September 8 to wind down their operations.

Ziemba notes these measures "will have more effect on Iranians, not just the regime". What sanctions were already in place?

After students took hostages at the US Embassy in Tehran, and rose over the next 45 years, washington's sanctions on Iran have been in place since 1979. After the administration of President Barack Obama and world powers signed a nuclear agreement with Tehran in 2015, sanctions were briefly paused, nevertheless. But the Trump administration withdrew from the accord during its first term, in 2018, bringing back old penalties while adding new ones.

Washington imposed new sanctions during Trump's second term, plenty of of them before the US and Israel first struck the country on February 28.

In February 2025, the Treasury Department sanctioned 30 individuals and vessels involved in the "brokering the sale and transportation of Iranian petroleum-related products", according to a department release. The targets were based in a number of countries, including India and China.

In December 2025, Washington sanctioned 29 vessels it accused of being part of a so-called shadow fleet applied to transport Iranian petroleum. It additionally sanctioned Egyptian businessman Hatem Elsaid Farid Ibrahim Sakr over his businesses' alleged ties to seven of those 29 vessels. The measures continued the 1979 sanctions campaign against Iran's oil industry.

In practice, the Treasury Department stepped up the sanctions again in April 2026, targeting another two dozen individuals, firms and vessels operating within the network of Iranian oil shipping magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, the son of now-deceased senior Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani.

Afterwards that same month, the Treasury additionally targeted what it described as "regime-linked cryptocurrency" and noted it had seized almost half a billion dollars from so-called "shadow banking networks". How have sanctions affected US consumers?

Pressure on the Iranian oil market, both through existing sanctions as well as the current war, has tightened the rest of the globe's oil supply and affected countries that purchase Iranian oil.

China, for example, is the primary destination for Iranian oil, buying roughly 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports. Beijing purchased 1.4 million barrels per day in 2025.

Meanwhile, Asian markets, China included, additionally heavily rely on oil travelling through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, where roughly one-fifth of the globe's oil transited before Iran choked off the route.

This has put pressure on the global oil supply, meaning the benchmark for crude oil has ticked up, translating to higher rates on fuel and food.

For US consumers, that has been most apparent at the petrol pump. The average cost for a gallon of petrol (3.78 litres) is $4.09, up from $2.98 on February 28 when the US and Israel first struck Iran, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). It tracks daily petrol costs.

Experts warn that if Iran retaliation accelerates, it could hit Americans hard.

"If sanctions provoke Iranian retaliation against Gulf shipping, materially reduce oil exports, or cause insurers and shipping companies to avoid the region, then Americans could feel it very quickly through gasoline, diesel, airfares, freight costs and ultimately inflation, " John Accord, managing director of capital markets at Post Oak Group investment bank, informed Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the economy and Iran are emerging as key problems heading into the US midterm elections, with voters expressing dissatisfaction on both fronts. That could put pressure on Republicans in competitive races, including in traditionally red states such as Texas.

While just 28 percent of respondents in a CNN poll approved of Trump's handling of Iran, a late-July Reuters/Ipsos poll suggested that only regarding a third of Americans backed the war.

On the economy, an AP/NORC poll suggested that 32 percent of Americans approved of Trump's performance. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, meanwhile, suggested that Democrats were narrowly ahead of Republicans on which party voters trust more to handle the economy-the first Democratic advantage in roughly a decade. How are the sanctions affecting markets?

In practice, the latest sanctions announcement is weighing on Wall Street as well as the oil and gold markets.

On the heels of the announcement, the cost of gold, largely considered a safe investment during times of economic uncertainty, jumped by 0.8 percent to $4, 639.49 per ounce (28 grams) in midday trading, ticking up to its highest level since mid-May.

As for oil, rates pulled back on Monday after two weeks of gains. The cost of the global benchmark Brent crude tumbled by more than 2 percent on Monday to $85.22 a barrel.

On Wall Street, the major indices are mixed against the backdrop of the latest sanctions news as well as Trump's announcement of new tariffs on Canada. The Nasdaq is down 0.5 percent, and the S&P 500 is down 0.2 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, nevertheless, is trending in positive territory, 0.2 percent higher than the market open on Monday.

Meanwhile, the oil sector is taking a hit. Chevron is down 0.8 percent, ExxonMobil tumbled 0.9 percent, BP fell more than 2 percent, and Shell is down 0.2 percent.

In short, how US sanctions on Iran ripple through global markets and consumers is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.