IRANS SHADOW FLEET RUNS DRY: TRUMP BLOCKADE STRANGLES THE REGIME
The mullahs just lost their last big cash cushion. Wall Street Journal reports that Irans fleet of shadow tankers sitting off Malaysia and Singapore has officially run out of oil. Those vessels started the war holding roughly 135 million barrels of crude that Tehran quietly sold to China for billions. By early October the reserves were already under a million barrels. Now they are gone.
This is exactly what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted and what the Trump-Hegseth blockade was designed to produce. Bessent has been blunt: “The noose is tightening around Iran’s economy, and not even Iran’s so-called allies can save it.” He has repeatedly said the goal is to empty the regime’s coffers and cut every remaining financial lifeline to its war machine.
CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper confirmed the scale of the damage. The naval blockade has already denied Iran at least $25 billion in oil revenue. Oil accounts for 30 to 40 percent of the regime’s government income. The rial has lost about a third of its value since July. Cooper added that the financial strain is so severe that Iran-aligned militias across the region are withholding payments from their own fighters to funnel money back to the IRGC, which itself is struggling to pay its troops.
Maximum pressure is working. The floating storage that kept the regime afloat is exhausted. Fresh exports are blocked. The cash that funded terror proxies, missiles, and the war is drying up. The strategy was always simple: cut off the oil money and force the mullahs to choose between their nuclear and regional ambitions and economic survival. That choice is now staring them in the face.-DTP