Iraq and Pakistan are cutting off some important land routes in and out of Iran, adding to the economic pressure on the regime after a U.S. naval blockade and tough sanctions on airlines severed most of the country's shipping and air routes.
The deepening isolation comes as President Trump is also ramping up military pressure in hopes of pressuring Iran to make concessions on its nuclear program. While Middle East mediators are scrambling to revive talks, the diplomatic front has been stalled for months, with Iran refusing U.S. demands to discuss the nuclear issue.
Iraq on Wednesday shut the Sheeb border point, which connects the two countries' biggest oil provinces. Baghdad cited the need to tighten enforcement against smuggling.
Over the weekend, Pakistan blocked trucks coming from Iran at two key border crossings, Gabd and Taftan, citing security considerations. Both have been used as road alternatives to Iran's biggest eastern port. On Friday, a spokesman for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry indicated the moves were related to sanctions enforcement.
"Pakistan, as a responsible member of the international community, adheres to and shall continue to adhere to all applicable sanctions regimes in accordance with international and domestic laws," the spokesman said when asked about the closures.
Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he was working with Pakistan and Turkey to cut off Iran's land routes. The U.S. is moving beyond financial sanctions to wage an "absolute isolation campaign" against Iran, Bessent told the Newsmax Policy Summit earlier this month.
The Treasury didn't return a request for comment. A Treasury official said last month the department was looking at blacklisting entities that provide warehouses and distribution centers to shut down the movement of goods into Iran's land borders.
A Trump administration official said the U.S. economic campaign "is isolating the Iranian regime into desperation."
Transit points remain open elsewhere on Iran's borders. But the closures are worsening congestion when land crossings already were struggling to make up for lost waterborne shipping capacity and stem the rising cost of basic goods for Iranian consumers.
As of Sept. 29, 17,000 trucks were waiting at Iran's borders with Turkey, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan, with delays typically running to 20 days, Ehsan Malekzadeh, chairman of the Iranian International Transportation Companies Association, told the semiofficial Mehr news agency at the time.
Hundreds of truck drivers have recently been waiting in long lines at the Pakistani border crossings. The Union of Truckers and Drivers Associations Across Iran said Tuesday that some drivers had been forced to abandon spoiled cargoes of fruit and other agricultural produce.
The Pakistani closures also have stranded more than 4,500 metric tons of bottled gas -- one of Tehran's last energy exports -- on the Iranian side of the border, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said.
Miad Maleki, a former Treasury sanctions official, said the partial border closures had the potential to further destabilize Iran's economy.
"Maritime restrictions have already pushed trade onto very limited and costly overland routes, so it does make Iran's remaining economic lifelines slower, more expensive and less reliable," he said. "They worsen congestion, raise transport costs and delay raw materials and essential imports, squeezing production and, most importantly, tax revenue."
Hamid Hosseini, a member of the board of directors of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce in Tehran, said in an interview he believes the closing of the Iraqi crossings was the result of the U.S. campaign to isolate Iran.
Peyman Sanandaji, head of the transportation commission of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, told the Mehr news agency that Iranian exports to Pakistan have been suspended because of banking sanctions.
Sanandaji said Islamabad was now asking Pakistani importers to register their banking details for Iran trades, which he said was complicated by restrictions on Tehran's financial system. Fadahossein Maleki, Iran's head of the Iran-Pakistan parliamentary friendship group, also blamed the U.S.
"We did not expect this from our Pakistani friends, and did not expect them to come under the influence of American pressure," Maleki, who is also a member of the parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, said Thursday.
The U.S. Navy has blockaded Iranian ports for months in response to Tehran's attacks on the Strait of Hormuz, bringing oil exports to zero and heavily disrupting its imports of goods including food. The blockade exempts humanitarian goods, but many shippers are afraid to risk getting stopped.
Iran's stockpile of oil beyond the U.S. blockade -- which for months it could continue selling to buyers in China -- is now tapped out.
Under Trump's new push to isolate Iran economically, the Treasury has also imposed new sanctions on banks transacting with Tehran and on Iran's aviation sector, cutting off most connections with trade partners such as Iraq and Oman.
Iran's economy has been crippled by war and isolation, and Iranian households have lost 90% of their purchasing power in the past year, the country's statistical center said this month. Food prices had risen by 128%, with many families forced to buy meat on credit. On Thursday, the value of the Iranian rial fell to a new low at 2,740,000 for a dollar.
