U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during a press conference outlining further sanctions against Iran at the Treasury Department in Washington, DC, USA, August 24, 2026.
Evelyn HochsteinReuter
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the Trump administration plans to impose sanctions on another bank this week to crack down on Iran dealings.
Bessent spoke to The Associated Press ahead of the Group of 20 (G20) meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, where he plans to meet individually with countries in the world’s major and developing countries to encourage participation in Iran’s economic isolation.
“If necessary, this will be economic violence,” Bessent said in an interview. “We’re showing people that we know who you are and you know who you are. This has to stop.”
Bessent had recently announced a new campaign to force countries still doing business with the Islamic Republic, which is already under heavy sanctions, to sever financial ties or face retaliation from the United States.
The Treasury Department’s first official action in the campaign was Friday’s proposed rulemaking that, if finalized, would cut off Emirati branches of Misr Bank, Egypt’s second-largest bank, from accessing the U.S. financial system.
By circumventing sanctions on Egyptian banks, the Republican administration appears to be signaling a reluctance to punish Iran’s major trading partners, such as China and India, with whose officials Bessent is expected to meet this week.
Bessent told The Associated Press that he intends to speak with his Chinese counterpart at the G20 meeting and that “all options are on the table” regarding sanctions against Beijing’s continued purchases.
But he downplayed this reluctance in an interview, calling it “completely false reports carried by the media” and insisting that China and the United States agree on the need to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
