US Treasury Revokes License Allowing Iranian Oil Sales in Fresh Economic Pressure on Tehran

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - The United States Treasury Department is revoking the general license that had allowed Iranian oil sales, a US official confirmed Tuesday, in a sharp escalation of Washington's economic pressure on Tehran that arrives just hours after Iran resumed missile attacks on commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The revocation of the general license effectively closes a channel that had permitted Iranian crude to flow to international buyers under controlled conditions, cutting off a revenue stream that Tehran had partially relied upon during the period following the June 17 memorandum of understanding between the two countries.

Timing That Speaks for Itself

The announcement comes at the most critical juncture in the US-Iran relationship since the memorandum of understanding was signed electronically by Presidents Trump and Pezeshkian less than three weeks ago. Axios reported on Monday, citing two US officials, that Iran fired at least two missiles at commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Monday night, after a one-week agreement on halting attacks in the waterway expired without a successor arrangement in place.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations confirmed it received a report from a tanker traveling south near the Omani coast in the Strait of Hormuz that was struck by an unknown projectile, causing a fire, with a second commercial vessel separately confirmed as struck by an Iranian missile. Both ships suffered significant damage with no casualties reported.

The Treasury's decision to revoke the Iranian oil sales license on the same day that Trump arrived in Ankara for the NATO summit signals that Washington is pursuing a dual-track response to Iran's renewed aggression, applying economic pressure simultaneously with the diplomatic and military options being weighed at the highest levels of the administration.

A Revenue Stream Already Under Severe Stress

The revocation strikes at an Iranian economy that has been severely weakened throughout the conflict. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein had warned on Saturday, June 6, 2026, that Iraq's own oil exports collapsed from nearly 100 million barrels in February to below 10 million barrels in April as a direct consequence of Hormuz disruptions, illustrating the cascading economic damage the conflict has produced across the region.

Iran's ability to generate oil revenue had been fundamentally constrained throughout the conflict by the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, which CENTCOM lifted on Thursday, June 12, 2026, following the formal signing of the memorandum of understanding. The revocation of the general license now threatens to reimpose financial isolation on Tehran through legal and sanctions mechanisms rather than physical naval enforcement, potentially producing comparable economic effects without the operational footprint of a maritime blockade.

Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf had previously stated on Iranian state television that Tehran will charge fees for transit through the Strait of Hormuz once the 60-day toll-free period stipulated in the memorandum of understanding expires, a position that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had warned would make a diplomatic deal "unfeasible." The resumed attacks on commercial vessels, combined with the Treasury's revocation of the oil sales license, suggest that the gap between the two sides' interpretations of the memorandum's obligations has widened to a potentially unbridgeable point.

The Frozen Assets Dimension

Iran has consistently linked its compliance with Hormuz to the release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets held by the United States, with Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader, telling CNN on June 5, 2026, that peace talks were at a "deadlock" until that condition was met. A Supreme Leader's office official told state television that Iran was assessing whether Washington had fulfilled its commitments, specifically whether Iran had actual access to its unfrozen funds.

The Treasury's revocation of the oil sales license, rather than releasing frozen assets to Tehran, moves in the precisely opposite direction from what Iran has demanded as the price of its compliance, raising the prospect of a rapid and potentially catastrophic breakdown in the peace process that Washington, Pakistan, and Qatar have invested heavily in constructing over recent months.

The Summit Context

Trump is attending the NATO summit in Ankara as the Treasury's revocation takes effect, managing a renewed Gulf crisis from the margins of a major alliance gathering at which European allies are simultaneously urging clarity on the state of the US-Iran peace deal before committing their own naval forces to Hormuz operations. The convergence of the Hormuz missile attacks, the Treasury's license revocation, and the NATO summit in the same 24-hour window places Washington's foreign policy apparatus under simultaneous pressure across multiple fronts at one of the most complex diplomatic moments of the Trump administration's second term.