US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Monday that the United States has increased pressure on Tehran by "launching an economic offensive against Iran's financial ties around the world."
"Our goal is to cut off every economic resource that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran is left alone," Bessent said at a press conference, days after he and President Donald Trump warned of "economic D-Day."
The announcement came nearly six months after the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, which has rocked global markets by disrupting oil supplies from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz.
Bessent said the US is "ending" the threat from Iran, rather than simply "managing" it, warning third countries that the United States will be "unforgiving in targeting any source of the [Iranian] regime's illicit revenue."
Bessent said Trump was holding phone calls with world leaders, with specific demands, and that each country would be given a set deadline to "shut down... the Iran-related activity that we have observed."
He declined to specify deadlines, but said: "We don't have infinite patience."
The US Treasury Department "has mapped the networks, intermediaries and financial channels that Iran uses to smuggle oil, evade sanctions and finance terrorism," Bessent said.
The Treasury Department said it had identified five sectors that Iran is using to support its economy - digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping - and is imposing new sanctions on about 60 entities, individuals and vessels.
Any country that supports Iran must be prepared to face US sanctions, he said, as "the Iranian regime faces a clear choice: severe global isolation or a path to reintegration into the global economy."
Warning of the new effort last week, without providing details, Bessent suggested that the existing US blockade of Iranian ports, combined with what he called "the toughest sanctions in history," would make it less necessary to undertake new military operations against Iran.
Large-scale attacks have subsided, but intermittent negotiations have not produced a deal to end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz - through which 20 percent of global oil shipments passed before the war - or resolve the decades-old dispute over Iran's nuclear activities.
When asked if the US would target China for continuing to buy Iranian oil, Bessent said: "We are convinced that everyone wants the Strait to reopen and for energy prices to come down again."
He emphasized that "the Chinese get 50 percent of their energy from within the Gulf. Therefore, it would be very useful for them to join this effort."
Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said: "Sanctions and pressure will not help solve problems. They will only increase tensions and escalate the situation, which does not serve the interests of either side."
In comments cited by China Daily, Lin called on the parties involved to return to dialogue as soon as possible and seek a political solution.
Trump is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington in late September.
Speaking to broadcaster CNBC last week about the new measures, Bessent said: "We are going to bring down this regime."
Trump, in a social media post on Monday, wrote: "Iran is completely collapsing."
Mehdi Ghodsi, senior economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, suggested that the sanctions may not produce the political reaction that Washington expects.
"The government is much more stubborn than that," Ghodsi told Radio Free Europe.
"The war has killed many of the regime's leaders and destroyed much of its infrastructure, but the government still stands by its position," he said.
"The country is heading in a direction where nothing but destruction awaits it," he said, but added: "For those who run the country, it really doesn't matter in what direction the country is heading."/REL
