Bessent to Newsmax: US to Hit Iran With Unprecedented Economic Isolation

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Newsmax on Thursday that the Trump administration will announce new measures against Iran next week that he said will take the economic isolation of the country to an unprecedented level.

"And watch this space for more announcements coming next week because we are going to apply measures like have never been seen in the history of the economic isolation of a country," Bessent told "Rob Schmitt Tonight."

Bessent said the administration is escalating a financial campaign that began after President Donald Trump ordered the restoration of "maximum pressure" against Tehran last year and intensified after the start of U.S. military operations against Iran in February.

"A year ago … the president gave me the order to apply maximum pressure to the Iranian regime, and Treasury did," Bessent said.

After Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. military campaign launched against Iran earlier this year, Bessent said the administration shifted its focus toward what Treasury calls "Economic Fury."

"We went from Epic Fury to Economic Fury," Bessent said. "And at the president's orders, we have raised the level even again."

Treasury has said Economic Fury has disrupted tens of billions of dollars in revenue that otherwise could have been available to Tehran and its proxies.

Bessent said the financial pressure is being paired with the continuing U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

"It will be a combination of economic isolation like the world has never seen before and the continued blockade in the Strait of Hormuz that will keep anything from going in or out of the Iranian ports," Bessent said.