WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told America’s allies Thursday that “you are either with us or against us” as he prepares to announce tough new sanctions against Iran — pledging “we are going to collapse this regime.”
Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that the Trump administration will use secondary sanctions to penalize countries and companies that continue to do business with Tehran, predicting that further “large-scale” military operations would not be needed.
“If you insist on doing business with them — either transferring money, buying their oil, doing seaborne ship transfers — then the US Treasury and the US government will put its full might and force toward enforcing against you,” the 63-year-old said.
“It is time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision, and we are going to squash the economy of this murderous regime.”
Bessent added that the strategy of maximum economic pressure on the Islamic Republic would be detailed at a Monday press conference — after months of stalled negotiations through which President Trump has sought to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program.
The toughened sanctions “will curtail their ability to project power through their proxies. It will mean that they cannot pay the military, and we have substantial inflation, both food inflation and ordinary inflation in Iran,” he explained.
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“It is a one-two punch. We have the blockade, and we are going to have the toughest sanctions in history, and I will tell you this will work. It worked in Venezuela once we put up the blockade. It is working in Cuba right now, and it is going to work in Iran — and we are going to collapse this regime.”
Trump has struggled for months to negotiate an end to the war that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netnayahu launched on Feb. 28 — with Iran defiantly insisting on being treated as the victor, including by being granted control over the Strait of Hormuz.
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Trump ordered new strikes on Iran last month — attacks dubbed “Operation Bitch Slap” by some inside the White House — after Iranian attacks on commercial ships using a US-endorsed route through the Strait of Hormuz.
The resumption of fighting derailed a ceasefire in place since April 7 and a preliminary peace plan signed by Trump on June 17.
“If we are doing the maximum economic pressure,” Bessent predicted Thursday, “then that means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart.”
