The Washington Post
Bessent unveils sweeping campaign of sanctions and pressure against Iran
The treasury secretary said Trump is contacting other world leaders to demand support for the “economic asphyxiation” of the Iranian regime but gave no deadline for action.
President Donald Trump is contacting other world leaders to demand that they support the United States in seeking the “economic asphyxiation of this regime,” Bessent said.
The treasury secretary said he would not identify the leaders contacted or provide a deadline for action. But he said the U.S. expected other governments to fall in line.
“The United States expects action,” Bessent told reporters during a news conference at the Treasury Department in Washington. “We do not have infinite patience here.”
Asked whether Chinese banks that finance Iranian oil imports would be among those hit with the punishing financial measures, Bessent said that “no one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions.”
The treasury chief also castigated nations that are engaged in trade with Iran — which includes U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf — as guilty of “appeasement.”
Monday’s announcement may tighten the financial noose around the Iranian regime. But it is far from the first time that the U.S. has tried to accomplish with economic sanctions what it was unable or unwilling to attempt with military force.
In recent years, sanctions have become an almost reflexive tool of American power, though one that carries a mixed record of success.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control administers 37 sanctions programs, including one targeting Cuba. President Dwight D. Eisenhower first imposed financial sanctions on the island’s communist government in 1960. His successor, President John F. Kennedy, broadened them into a full trade embargo. Though its economy is a wreck and its people lack routine access to electricity and other essentials, Cuba today remains under communist rule.
Monday’s announcement came after days of warnings from Bessent and Trump that they would implement new sanctions. In an opinion piece published in the Financial Times on Sunday, Bessent wrote that the United States had “significantly dismantled Iran’s military capabilities and weakened its nuclear programme.”
He said the U.S. was entering an “endgame” in its war with Iran and threatened Tehran with what he described as the “single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary.”
“Total financial isolation,” he said, could make force unnecessary in the war the Trump administration launched against Iran in late February.
Early Monday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi mocked Bessent’s comments, saying his “narrative does not add up.”
“You say Iran’s military capability has been dismantled, 100% of military factories destroyed, and the nuclear program buried,” Gharibabadi wrote on social media. “Yet for the very same Iran, the largest financial offensive in history and the mobilization of all U.S. agencies and authorities have become necessary!” he wrote. “Is this a victory or an admission of U.S. defeat?”
The war has reached a near-stalemate in recent weeks, even as a ceasefire agreement expired last week. The hostilities have disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key channel through which around 20 percent of the world’s oil moved before the war, for months.
That disruption has pushed up oil and gas prices in the lead-up to the midterm elections in early November, in which Republicans are hoping to maintain control of the House and Senate. Most Americans disapprove of the war, contributing to record low approval ratings for Trump.
“I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!” Trump posted on social media Wednesday. “This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale.”
Trump suggested that the policy will consist of widespread secondary sanctions. “ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences,” he wrote.
On Saturday, Mohsen Rezaei, the head of Iran’s national security council, vowed that “not a single drop of oil” will be exported through the Persian Gulf if the U.S.-led “economic war continues.”
“Iran will regard any country’s participation in or support for America’s economic war against the Iranian people as an act of war,” he wrote on X.
Iran’s currency hit a record low Monday, and skyrocketing inflation has made life unaffordable for many Iranians. But Iran’s threats against ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz have helped to maintain the country’s leverage.
Iran and Oman are reportedly closing in on a plan for joint control of the Strait. Oman’s foreign minister is set to visit Tehran on Tuesday, following a visit by Pakistan’s army chief on Monday.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei told state media Monday that there is no connection between the two countries’ visits but that the Omani meeting would cover security and traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
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