The United States began rolling out sanctions on Iran’s trading partners on Monday under what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called “the greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary” — and Tehran responded by threatening to stop all oil leaving the Gulf.
“At dawn begins an economic D-Day,” Bessent wrote in an opinion piece published in the Financial Times on Sunday. Without naming specific measures, he signalled that Washington would target what he called “fearful nations” practising “appeasement” by dealing with Iran’s economy and financial system. “They would do well to consider the consequences of sustaining it,” he wrote. Al Jazeera reported him saying the aim was to “sever every economic lifeline” sustaining Iran.
Bessent is due to hold a press conference at 2.00 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Monday.
Tehran’s counter-threat
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, escalated the warning he issued at the weekend into an explicit export threat.
“If the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported, neither through the Strait of Hormuz nor from anywhere in the Persian Gulf,” Rezaei wrote in a social media post. He added that Iran would treat any country’s participation in or support for the campaign as “an act of war”.
Iran’s parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission separately advanced a draft law that would charge ships permitted to transit Hormuz for services provided by Tehran, Al Jazeera reported.
Bessent has pressed China to cooperate, noting it draws half its oil imports from the Gulf. A spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington said “sanctions and pressure do not help resolve the problem” and called for diplomacy.
Six months, no talks
Neither side has conducted military strikes for weeks, but nor have they held meaningful negotiations. The last face-to-face US–Iran talks were in Switzerland in June. Qatar, Pakistan and Turkey have all attempted mediation, and Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir was due in Tehran on Monday, timed to coincide with Bessent’s announcement.
Thousands have died — most of them in Iran and Lebanon — since the United States and Israel began strikes on February 28. The campaign degraded much of Iran’s conventional military and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US has reported 18 military personnel killed and more than 750 wounded.
Iran retains enough missile and drone capability to threaten tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, where shipping has slowed to a near standstill — the mechanism through which the conflict reaches Sri Lanka, via fuel and freight costs and food prices.
