Carter freezes Iranian government assets under IEEPA

President Jimmy Carter declared a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act on November 14, 1979, freezing approximately $12 billion in Iranian government assets held in U.S. banks — the first use of IEEPA since Congress passed the law two years earlier. The order came 10 days after Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage. The freeze established IEEPA as the president's primary tool for economic coercion in foreign policy crises and set the precedent for every subsequent presidential emergency economic order.