United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced this Monday a new round of economic sanctions against all countries that refuse to cut their formal and informal ties with Iran. In a tone more threatening than usual for him, Bessent warned both allies and adversaries, including China, of reprisals that will expose them “to the full reach of American power.”
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“The Treasury has identified every node, every intermediary, and every network that Iran has used to smuggle oil and evade sanctions,” the secretary said. “From today, Treasury and other agencies’ measures will tighten the noose and block all possible sources of income that finance the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian regime. We will apply a zero-leak approach. There will be no respite for the regime to rebuild its capacity to perpetrate acts of terror against the U.S.”
Scott Bessent, U.S. Treasury Secretary
“Any kind of economic relationship with this murderous regime will expose those responsible to the full reach of American power”
Bessent did not detail a list of possible sanctions and explicitly refused to give “timelines,” but warned that any “country or entity” foolish enough to maintain business with the regime “will be expelled from the U.S. dollar system.” “If they facilitate transactions and are part of the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money and that money into repression, they will be sanctioned,” he stated.
Although he acknowledged that the sanctions are not yet in effect, to “give time” for countries “facilitating” the Iranian regime to reconsider, Bessent assured that the new economic war begins today and President Donald Trump has already called several world leaders to demand concrete “actions” to stop the flow of money to Iran.
“Our goal, worldwide, is to cut off every single economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran is isolated,” Bessent said. “I will not set timelines, but we do not have infinite patience here,” he concluded: “The clock has started ticking.”
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Trump advanced this renewed isolation strategy against Tehran last week, calling it the “D-Day economic,” referring to the Allied landing in Normandy during World War II, which Bessent also referenced today. After half a year of military offensive, which has not been enough to achieve strategic objectives, and following the failure of diplomacy after the memorandum of understanding signed in June fell apart, Washington is now strengthening the economic battlefront.
The measures have begun to take effect even before being announced, as the Iranian currency, the rial, plummeted this morning to a historic low: one dollar now equals 2.02 million rials in the informal market. Its economy, which was already in crisis before the war, causing significant protests in the country, has worsened due to the conflict and the pressure of sanctions.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said this Monday that it will not bow to Washington’s pressure campaign. Its spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, dismissed the U.S. strategy, stating that the Trump Administration is merely “repeating methods that have already proven unsuccessful.” He added that Iran “will undoubtedly use all multilateral capabilities to face economic sanctions.”
Iran dismisses Trump’s strategy, which is limited to “repeating methods that have already proven unsuccessful”
The U.S. has maintained significant sanctions against Iran for five decades, since the Islamic regime came to power through the 1979 revolution, which have mainly impacted ordinary citizens. When it withdrew from Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, Trump imposed new sanctions during his first term in a maximum pressure campaign against the Persian country, and earlier this year pushed a new package of measures called Operation Economic Fury.
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The measures announced this Monday seek to go further and definitively isolate the Iranian economy, which will require coordination between the U.S. and its allies. The message can be interpreted as a call for help, but also as a threat if other countries do not follow the president’s wishes, especially his geopolitical adversaries.
China is, by far, the main buyer of Iranian oil in the world and represents more than 80% of exports by sea. The announcement of new sanctions could lead to a direct clash with Beijing. It would frustrate the rapprochements made between the two leading world powers in the commercial field, after Trump and his government visited China before summer and awaiting a visit from Chinese leader Xi Jinping to the U.S. next month.
The announcement could frustrate the recent rapprochement with China, as it is the world’s largest buyer of Iranian oil
Asked about this, Bessent responded bluntly. “Let there be no ambiguity about the U.S. position: any kind of economic relationship with this murderous regime will expose those responsible to the full reach of American power,” he assured, adding that “no country is above the reach of U.S. sanctions.”
In his announcement last week, Trump warned that this would be “the most devastating economic operation ever undertaken against any country,” he wrote on his network, Truth Social. “Any country that allows its financial institutions, companies, airports, or government entities to provide any kind of lifeline to Iran will in turn face tremendous economic consequences.”
The White House wants to end the war soon and sell a victory to the American people before the midterm legislative elections, which will determine Trump’s ability to act – and the Democrats’ veto and investigations – in his last two years of presidency. And, although Iran’s military capabilities have been degraded, the country still maintains the capacity to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which before the conflict passed a fifth of the world’s crude oil trade.
Since the diplomatic route was exhausted, and after the Pentagon’s difficulties in supplying some missile systems came to light, Trump reimposed sanctions that had been lifted with the agreement signed in June, as well as the naval blockade of Iranian ports. Although the Iranian economy is weakened, Washington’s goal is for the country to go from crisis to strangulation. Tehran has so far managed to evade U.S. measures through clandestine activities, including a sophisticated network of tankers to export oil.
In his publication last week, Trump referred to the new strategy as “an economic war and isolation on an unprecedented scale” and called on all countries to avoid any business or economic or logistical aid to the regime. Among the types of activities they will pursue, the president also mentioned opaque and clandestine ones: “Oil smuggling, currency exchange lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, shell companies… All this must stop now. You know who they are.”
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