Trump Unleashes Scott Bessent on Iran
The President redoubles the economic pressure on the regime amid signs it’s working.
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On Monday Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Operation Economic Outcast against Iran and its enablers, even comparing the action to D-Day. “Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone,” he said.
President Trump is working the phones and “every country has a defined timeline to shut down activities we have identified,” Mr. Bessent said. “If they do not take action, we will do so unilaterally.” He declined to lay out the timelines, leaving Mr. Trump room to delay, but he said to expect “a major announcement of a financial institution being sanctioned by the end of this week.”
The D-Day analogy may be grandiose, but President Trump has waited nearly six months to take this economic step. Early in the war the U.S. even encouraged Iranian oil exports.
We’ve come a long way. Last week Iran’s central-bank governor admitted the U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports has driven the regime’s oil exports to zero. The United Arab Emirates also announced a halt to all trade with Iran. Mr. Bessent said that was “not a coincidence.”
On Sunday Iran’s currency plummeted past two million to the dollar, a new record. That’s down from 1.4 million to start the year, 750,000 in 2024 and 70,000 when Mr. Trump quit the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Inflation is raging and the regime is preparing to slash fuel subsidies—always politically combustible.
Iranian politicians are suddenly worried. On Friday President Masoud Pezeshkian urged, “The war must come to an end at some point,” and acknowledged Iran’s economic shortages. On Thursday Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and top negotiator, said, “No matter how much military power we have, if people are hungry and we don’t have financial circulation, economic growth and domestic production, we will not endure.”
This is the stuff regime fissures are made of. As if to underscore the point, the electricity went out as the parliament’s energy committee met Monday . . . to discuss Iran’s power outages.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) likely takes a harder line, though it also hurts for lack of oil revenue. Worse, it may be losing control of the Strait of Hormuz as the U.S. escorts increasing quantities of oil. With the price of oil still below $100, the U.S. may be able to maintain its blockade longer than Iran’s regime can bear.
The question as always is whether the Trump Administration will stick to its plans. Mr. Bessent said the economic campaign “will not end until this regime stands alone,” and the pre-emptive action by the U.A.E. is a good sign. But even halting direct trade leaves intact Dubai’s Iran-sanctions-evasion network, whose goal is to disguise any trading with Iran.
Mr. Bessent’s reference to Emirati exchange houses implies he knows this. “Iran’s enablers purchase and transport its petroleum. They facilitate the flow of its finances through exchange houses and free-trade zones,” he said. “They welcome Iran’s flights and maintain registries on its behalf. They turn a blind eye to seaborne fuel transfers and overland transits. They condone illicit use of their banks.”
His remarks suggest Treasury has identified the regime’s key cash spigots, maneuvers and enablers. The latter includes the U.A.E., Iraq, Turkey, Malaysia, Qatar, Pakistan and, above all, China. While purchases of Iranian oil by Chinese “teapot” refineries are now thwarted by the U.S. blockade, the buyers remain willing.
Is the U.S. willing to climb the sanctions ladder, proceeding from those small refineries to target the Chinese state-owned banks and other institutions that sustain them? Treasury warned as much in April, but the Trump Administration hasn’t followed through.
Now is its test. Asked Monday about breaking a trade truce with China, Mr. Bessent said, “If they facilitate transactions and are part of the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money into repression, they will be targeted.”
Yet when asked why he hadn’t imposed major sanctions today, and merely warned of them, Mr. Bessent replied, “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” If that’s what he thinks pressing China on Iranian oil purchases would do, Beijing may call his bluff.
Mr. Trump has belatedly found a pressure strategy with Iran that may give him the upper hand. But the IRGC is unlikely to give up its financing networks without a fight. Will Mr. Trump stick to this strategy when Iran next fires on Gulf energy and whispers a soothing word to mediators from Pakistan and Qatar?
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Appeared in the August 25, 2026, print edition as 'Trump Unleashes Bessent on Iran'.
The Editorial Board speaks for free markets and free people, the principles, if you will, marked in the watershed year of 1776 by Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith's “Wealth of Nations.” So over the past century and into the next, the Journal stands for free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the ukases of kings and other collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities.
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