What it captures
US-government actions whose primary policy objective is the economic isolation of Iran, distinct from broader trade-policy resets or counter-proliferation regimes. The cluster spans both Trump 1.0 (E.O. 13902, sectoral determinations 2019-2020) and Trump 2.0 (NSPM-2 restoration, February 2025) plus the intervening Biden-era enforcement actions that carried forward the perimeter without expanding it.
Why it matters
The Iran maximum-pressure architecture is the longest-running coherent US sanctions program against a major hydrocarbon producer, and its reactivation under Trump 2.0 is reshaping shadow-fleet logistics, FFI correspondent-banking risk, and gold/crypto-routed trade-finance flows across the Gulf, Türkiye, and Greater China. The 2020 financial-sector determination is the legal foundation for all subsequent secondary-sanctions exposure on Iran-adjacent banks; its 2025 Federal Register republication is the procedural locking-in step ahead of post-NSPM-2 enforcement.
Pattern to watch
Whether Trump 2.0 layers EO 14382 secondary-tariff authority on top of the existing E.O. 13902 secondary-financial-sanctions stack — creating a dual-instrument enforcement perimeter — or substitutes one for the other. The two have different rate-of-fire and jurisdictional reach.