Treasury Launches New Sanctions Push to Further Isolate Iran
By Tom LoBianco | Quincy News Correspondent
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Washington (Quincy News) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced new economic measures Monday aimed at further isolating Iran and pressuring countries that continue doing business with Tehran, part of a broader effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Bessent said President Donald Trump directed him to launch Operation Economic Outcast, an effort to restrict Iran’s access to the global economy.
“Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone,” Bessent said at a press conference Monday.
The move comes after months of stalled peace negotiations, while the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has pushed up energy costs and contributed to broader price pressures in the U.S.
“Any entity that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the U.S. dollar system,” Bessent said. “The clock just started ticking.”
Bessent said the U.S. Treasury was broadening secondary sanctions in five areas: “digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping.” Oil was not among the five sectors, though Iranian oil revenue remains a target of the broader campaign.
“Iran can survive economically as long as China keeps buying their oil. And there is no sign they are stopping,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in a statement on X.com. “Worse, Trump’s Iran obsession has given China NEW leverage.”
Murphy, a senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argued that the U.S. is effectively unable to pressure China because of the country’s control over critical minerals essential to the AI industry.
Asked whether Chinese banks would be targeted, Bessent declined to say, saying only that “no one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions.” Monday’s sanctions included companies and individuals in mainland China and Hong Kong, but no major Chinese financial institutions. Bessent said he expects a major financial institution to be sanctioned over Iran by the end of the week.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi responded to Bessent’s Financial Times op-ed previewing the sanctions, calling the planned offensive an “admission of defeat.”
“Your narrative doesn’t add up,” Gharibabadi wrote on X, questioning why the U.S. would need what Bessent called “the single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary” if Iran’s military and nuclear capabilities had already been dismantled.
The U.S., across multiple administrations led by both parties, has relied on sanctions as a standard tool in its dealings with Iran for more than four decades.
But sanctions have yielded mixed results over the years, as Democratic and Republican administrations have alternated between economic pressure and diplomatic engagement with Iran, according to a policy assessment by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
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