Asim Munir's double game: Pakistan punches a legal hole in US naval blockade of Iran

The US Treasury on Saturday announced fourteen new designations of individuals and entities under Operation Economic Fury this week, expanding the sixty-day campaign to cut Tehran off from global financial rails.

US President Donald Trump cancelled the Witkoff-Kushner delegation’s flight to Islamabad for the second round of US-Iran ceasefire talks, citing “tremendous infighting and confusion” within Iran’s leadership.

On the same day, in Islamabad, Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce issued SRO 691(I)/2026, the “Transit of Goods through the Territory of Pakistan Order 2026,” authorizing third-country goods to flow overland to Iran through six designated routes effective immediately.


Three thousand Iran-bound containers were stuck at Karachi port behind the US naval blockade Trump had ordered on April 13. The transit order enabled them to move.

Pakistan just punched a legal hole in the United States naval blockade of Iran while simultaneously mediating the ceasefire that depends on the same blockade for leverage. Retired US Colonel Lawrence Sellin reacted by claiming “Pakistan helps Iran break the US naval blockade “.

It is only a country like Pakistan that can simultaneously mediate a US-Iran ceasefire, take Saudi money to enforce Iran-isolation, host both sides at Islamabad's Serena Hotel, and legally punch a hole in the US naval blockade in the same week Treasury announced new sanctions. Field Marshal Asim Munir runs both the back-channel and the corridor that bypasses it.