US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the United States was entering an “economic D-Day” against Iran following what he described as the Trump administration’s dismantling of the Islamic Republic’s military and nuclear capabilities.<\/p>\n
“President (Donald) Trump has dismantled Iran\u2019s military capabilities, destroyed nearly 100 percent of its military factories, and buried its nuclear program,” Bessent said in a post on the US social media platform X.<\/p>\n
Bessent said the administration intended to utilize every available resource to further isolate Iran economically and cut off sources of support for the Iranian government.<\/p>\n
“The President has created the conditions to leverage every agency, every authority and action many assumed we would never summon. Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone,” he said.<\/p>\n
He also warned governments and other actors against assuming that Washington would be unwilling to impose costs on those challenging its Iran policy.<\/p>\n
“The Islamic Republic has subsisted by dressing extortion as security guarantees. It has drawn strength from a calculus that regards Iranian retaliation as certain and American enforcement as negotiable. Under President Trump, that era is over. And those who fear the danger of defying Tehran ought not to discount the cost of testing Washington,” he said.<\/p>\n
Bessent did not provide details in the post on the specific economic measures or agencies that would be involved in the planned offensive.<\/p>\n
Oil falls as US prepares to unveil new Iran sanctions<\/strong><\/p>\n Oil prices slipped more than $1 a barrel on Monday as investors took profits ahead of \u200can expected announcement from Washington about imposing more sanctions on Iran that may further disrupt supplies from the Middle East.<\/p>\n Brent crude futures fell $1.23, or 1.3%, to $93.16 by 0829 PKT, while US\u00a0West Texas Intermediate crude was at $85.7 a barrel, down $1.36, or 1.6%.<\/p>\n Both \u200bcontracts posted their second weekly gains last week, up more than 5%, as peace talks between \u200bthe U.S. and Iran hit a stalemate, capping oil shipments through the Strait of \u2060Hormuz where a fifth of the world’s supply used to transit.<\/p>\n US\u00a0Treasury Secretary\u00a0Scott Bessent, set to hold a \u200bpress conference at 2 pm\u00a0EDT (1800 GMT) on Monday, has threatened to impose “the toughest sanctions in history” on \u200bIran. Trump also threatened to impose sanctions on Iran’s trading partners.<\/p>\n “It is unclear whether US\u00a0policy to economically isolate Iran will prove effective,” Vivek Dhar, a commodities analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wrote in a note.<\/p>\n “But if the \u200bUS\u00a0measures do work as intended, Iran’s ability to respond via increased violence becomes a growing risk for \u200benergy markets to consider.”<\/p>\n Iran has condemned US\u00a0plans to announce new sanctions even as President Masoud Pezeshkian called for a\u00a0diplomatic \u200csolution.<\/p>\n “The more \u2060pragmatic members of the Iranian leadership would prefer to de-escalate but the hardliners would probably prefer to fight to the bitter end,” IG markets analyst Tony Sycamore said.<\/p>\n “I think by the end of this week we will have a good idea which side of the Iranian leadership has the upper hand.”<\/p>\n Offers of Iranian crude to \u200bChinese buyers\u00a0have declined\u00a0and \u200bprices have jumped as the \u2060US\u00a0blockade has cut Tehran’s shipments, according to trade sources.<\/p>\n However, Iran has granted permission for a number of\u00a0Iraqi oil tankers\u00a0to pass through the Strait following repeated \u200brequests from Baghdad, Iran\u2019s state news agency\u00a0IRNA\u00a0<\/em>reported on Saturday.<\/p>\n Some analysts are \u200bexpecting the recovery \u2060in supplies from the Middle East to take even longer than expected as the US-Iran conflict persists.<\/p>\n “Crude (supply) is tightening. Recent weeks have seen one of the sharpest declines in oil-on-water, whilst onshore inventories are declining as well, including \u2060in China,” \u200bsaid Morgan Stanley analysts in a note.<\/p>\n “A reduction in supply is \u200bdriving this, most notably from the Middle East where several data sources put aggregate exports back at March\/April levels,” they said, slowing \u200btheir assumption for a recovery in Middle East supplies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the United States was entering an “economic D-Day” against Iran following what he described as the Trump administration’s dismantling of the Islamic Republic’s military and nuclear capabilities. “President (Donald) Trump has dismantled Iran\u2019s military capabilities, destroyed nearly 100 percent of its military factories, and buried its nuclear …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4982,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4980\/revisions\/4982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}