U.S. Treasury Secretary George Bessent gave his opinion on the U.S. economic pressure campaign at the G20 Finance Ministers’ Meeting.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Iran is taking new US sanctions seriously as tensions between the US and Iran reach six months.
Bessent said on Monday that Iran takes the sanctions seriously and told U.S. business news network CNBC that the goal was to “create conditions that would make Iran want to come to the negotiating table.”
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His comments were made on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, amid an economic pressure campaign dubbed “Operation Economic Purge” by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“I think they’re attacking them athletically because they’re losing economically,” Bessent told reporters Monday.
Bessent said he believed Iran’s economy could collapse “within weeks or months,” but stressed that this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. “We have no choice but to get the regime to come to its senses,” he said.
Last week, the US imposed a new set of sanctions on Iran, hitting five sectors of the country’s economy: aviation, digital assets, gold, technology and shipping, and also imposed sanctions on 60 specific individuals and vessels.
Bessent also highlighted support from trading partners, including the European Union, which he said backed the sanctions with its “full support.”
“The EU welcomes efforts, through additional economic pressure, such as the US-led Operation Economic Outcast, to ensure that Iran ceases its destabilizing activities and engages in peace negotiations in good faith,” the European Commission said in a statement.
On Sunday, Bessent told Reuters the United States was likely to announce new sanctions every week.
After imposing penalties on Friday against the United Arab Emirates branch of Egypt’s Misr Bank for alleged financial ties to Iran, Bessent said the next step could be to cut the institution off from the dollar-based financial system entirely.
“We’re going to see more of this every week,” Bessent said ahead of the G20 financial leaders meeting. “We’re starting with the banks, and we’re telling them that it’s not okay to hold Iranian money and support the regime.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh said at the G20 opening plenary, his first international economic policy meeting since taking office in May, that he looked forward to learning more about member countries’ growth prospects.
Warsh’s comments were reinforced in a speech at a Jackson Hole Federal Reserve symposium on Friday, in which he said policymakers “have work to do” if they are not confident that inflation is returning to the central bank’s 2% target.
He argued that inflation is too high, financial conditions are not restrictive and the labor market is consistent with full employment, suggesting that price stability remains the Fed’s priority.
Warsh’s comments could signal that a rate hike is coming.
Since the United States and Israel first attacked Iran on February 28, one of the factors driving inflation in the United States has been the energy market. Overall energy prices rose 14.7% year-on-year in July, and gasoline prices in particular rose 24.6% over the past 12 months.
Comments and rising tensions between the US and Iran are moving the market. For example, gold, typically considered a safe investment in times of economic uncertainty, fell to a two-week low, down 0.8% to $4,419.38 an ounce.
Meanwhile, on Wall Street, all major indexes are trending downward. The Nasdaq fell 0.4%, the S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6%.
