WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the start of the “Operation Economic Outcast” campaign against Iran to “tighten the noose” around the regime and warned countries against doing business with Tehran.
The Trump admin aims to choke off revenue streams to the Iranian regime by pressuring secondary countries to stop doing oil, energy and business deals with Tehran.
“The clock just started ticking,” the secretary warned in a Monday news conference at the Treasury’s headquarters in DC — while declining to give a precise timeline before secondary sanctions would take effect.
Bessent revealed that President Trump has been burning the phone lines with world leaders with specific demands and stressed that America “does not have infinite patience” for those countries to comply.
“The president is making phone calls to world leaders with specific requests to cease their interactions with the regime. We are already seeing results,” Bessent said, without naming any specific countries.
Bessent’s issued a final warning to world leaders “to make a decision between … America and Iran.” The last call comes as Trump is preparing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping next month.
Beijing purchases roughly 90% of Iran’s oil.
The United Arab Emirates already announced last week that it was stopping all trade and financial transactions with Iran.
Asked Monday, Bessent told a Post reporter those actions were “likely causal, and I would expect that we would see a broad array of countries taking similar action as we continue our engagement.”
“The UAE has been a very good partner,” the secretary said. “You will see a wave of sanctions when you leave this meeting today and you should expect that cadence to continue.”
“And I would expect that you will see a major announcement of a financial institution being sanctioned by the end of this week,” added Bessent.
The new sanctions authorities will allow Bessent, “in consultation with the Department of State,” to target countries or entities dealing with Tehran through digital assets, technology, gold, commercial aviation and shipping.
Those authorities took effect Monday pursuant to an executive order Trump signed in January 2020.
As the six-month-old war with Iran has dragged on, the Trump admin has teased an “Economic D-Day” approach.
As an example, Bessent warned that countries have been told to shutter Bank Melli branches within their borders, referring to the largest government-owned commercial bank in Iran.
Bessent said the operation will “foreclose every other option available,” calling it a “zero leakage approach” that will ensure the regime will have “no minimal breathing space” to rebuild.
“Iran now faces a very clear choice, with only two paths before them: complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back to normalcy with an opportunity to rejoin the global economy,” he said.
In addition, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control on Monday sanctioned more than 60 entities that enable Iran to obtain illicit nuclear and missile technology, conduct malicious cyberattacks and increase the regime’s oil revenue through shadow fleets and other entities.
That shadow network had been operating in the UAE, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Switzerland and other European nations to help move sanctioned Iranian oil, channeling revenue back to the IRGC’s Qods Force.
