But in Iran, which the Trump administration has successfully isolated from much of the world since pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, the president has very limited options to engage.

It’s been less than two months since the U.S. killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and the nations stood on the brink of outright war. The coronavirus has prompted the U.S. to restrict travel for the recent surge of troops it sent to the region.

“President Trump essentially has sanctioned America out of influence inside Iran,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

The impact of those sanctions also hovers over Iran. They have damaged Iran’s relatively strong health care infrastructure, causing some shortages and skyrocketing medical prices.

Though they include exemptions for humanitarian goods, many experts said European banks have been unwilling to finance even those transactions for fear of running afoul of sanctions.

“Companies and banks are very cautious about dealing with Iran even for humanitarian trade,” said Tara Sepehri Far, an Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch who authored a report last year on the impact of the U.S. maximum pressure campaign. “There are several cases of what should be legitimate trade that banks either refused to authorize or companies just ended their relationship with Iran.”

It’s not clear whether the sanctions are yet affecting Iran’s ability to respond to the coronavirus. But if the contagion starts to overwhelm the country’s system, experts say the sanctions could play a role in hampering preventive and treatment efforts.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Friday stepped up pressure, asking the Treasury and State departments in a letter to ensure U.S. sanctions weren’t hindering the delivery of humanitarian supplies.

Some groups are pressing the U.S. to waive certain restrictions to enable easier collaboration between researchers. Or it could take steps to reassure foreign companies explicitly that they won’t be penalized for providing humanitarian supplies to Iran to handle the coronavirus outbreak.

POLITICO NEWSLETTERS POLITICO Playbook Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics. Sign Up Loading By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The U.S. is touting the new Swiss channel as one of the mechanisms that can facilitate humanitarian aid, though opinions vary on how effective or widely used it will be.

There aren’t signs that additional steps to encourage financing will follow. “We’ve been pretty clear,” a Treasury Department spokeswoman said. “We’ve expressed over and over again: We’re more than willing to work with companies and other countries to make sure the Iranian people are getting the tools they need.”

The sanctions might have their greatest impact on the coronavirus as a bogeyman. Iranian leaders can blame the U.S. — or, alternatively, paint the virus as a paper tiger much like they’ve tried to shrug off sanctions’ impact.

“Sanctions become a useful excuse for Iran’s own inefficiency,” said Mike Rubin, a resident scholar at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

And regardless of what actions the U.S. takes, there’s widespread agreement that Iran has dropped the ball. Its leaders have inaccurately pooh-poohed the prospect of quarantines as an anachronism, possibly delayed telling the public about initial coronavirus cases, planned to export the country’s face masks to China and failed to be transparent with the international community.

Because Iranians’ trust in their government is low after a series of recent incidents, they’re less likely to follow its public health advice, warned Holly Dagres, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

The government’s approach was perhaps best symbolized by deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi, who downplayed the spread of the coronavirus earlier this week — and then tested positive for it by the next day.

And, of course, any country will face difficulty in grappling with an aggressive virus as medical experts are still racing to understand it and develop a vaccine.

“Iran up until now has refused to admit that it even has a problem,” said Amir Afkhami, a George Washington University associate professor and expert on public health in Iran. “The policy shortfalls that you’re seeing in Iran are responsible for the direction of the illness.”