Bessent to Unveil 'Toughest' Iran Sanctions as Rezaei Threatens Total Gulf Oil Halt
Key Takeaways
- •Scott Bessent will unveil the new Iran sanctions at a Monday press conference at 2pm EDT.
- •The Trump administration says the campaign is intended to isolate Iran economically and force allies to sever trade ties with Tehran.
- •President Donald Trump warned that countries helping Iran evade sanctions could face severe financial penalties.
- •Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary said any country joining the US sanctions would be treated as participating in an act of war.
- •Iran warned that if pressure continues, no oil will be exported from the Strait of Hormuz or anywhere else in the Persian Gulf.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will hold a press conference on Monday at 2pm EDT to unveil what he and the Trump administration call the toughest sanctions in history against Iran, marking the formal start of the "economic D-Day" campaign that President Donald Trump previewed last week. Tehran's response has been immediate and pointed: a threat to shut down all Gulf oil exports and to treat any country's cooperation with Washington's measures as an act of war.
Writing in the Financial Times, Bessent said the moment had arrived for countries that calculated appeasing Tehran was the safer path to reconsider that judgment, framing the sanctions as a turning point rather than an incremental escalation. Speaking to CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" ahead of the announcement, he described the measures as the greatest campaign of coordinated economic isolation in history and said the approach that worked against Venezuela's blockade, and continues to work against Cuba, would now be applied to Iran.
Bessent said the United States intends to collapse Iran's regime, and that Washington will demand allies stop doing business with Iran and cut off economic ties with Tehran, using the country's full might against anyone who declines to comply. Trump reinforced the message in a Truth Social post, describing the campaign as economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale and warning of severe financial penalties for any nation helping Iran evade sanctions.
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), warned that Iran would treat any country's participation in the US sanctions as an act of war against Iran. If the economic war continues, he said, not a single drop of oil will be exported — either through the Strait of Hormuz or from anywhere else in the wider Persian Gulf. That warning matters because the Gulf is central to global crude and shipping flows, so even a threat that goes beyond the narrow strait widens the focus from a single chokepoint to the broader logistics network that moves oil, insurance and freight through the region.
Separate commentary attributed to Marandi described the sanctions as the start of a new phase in what it called Washington's war of aggression. The commentary warned that Iran would use the moment to punish governments that cooperate with the US and to cause panic in both the energy market and the US bond market.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has taken a more dismissive public tone. A spokesperson quoted by state media called the sanctions threat an implicit admission of the enemy's humiliating defeat in the military arena. The same spokesperson said Iran has ways to counter the adverse effects of what it termed the enemy's economic war and can readily establish economic relations with other countries regardless of US pressure.
Market commentary accompanying the report assessed that the explicit threat to halt all oil exports from the Persian Gulf — not just the Strait of Hormuz — raises the stakes well beyond the partial disruption markets have priced in over recent months, and that Rezaei's language should be read as a genuine escalation risk rather than rhetorical posturing given his position atop Iran's security apparatus. Bessent's framing of the sanctions as forcing allies into a binary choice was seen as raising the prospect of secondary sanctions risk spreading to shipping, insurance and financial intermediaries well beyond Iran's direct trading partners, which could tighten global crude logistics even without a physical blockade escalation. The separate commentary referencing a plan to target the US bond market alongside energy was noted as an unusual dimension, suggesting Tehran may be signalling an intent to weaponise financial market volatility rather than confining retaliation to oil infrastructure. Elevated volatility was flagged across crude benchmarks, tanker freight rates and regional equities heading into Monday's announcement, with downside risk highlighted if Bessent's measures are seen as maximalist enough to provoke immediate Iranian retaliation.
The combination of an unprecedented US sanctions push and an explicit Iranian threat to halt all Gulf oil exports sets up Monday's announcement as a genuine flashpoint rather than a routine policy update, the report concluded. With Rezaei's position atop Iran's security council lending his warning institutional weight, and Washington framing the campaign as designed to force a binary choice on the rest of the world, the risk of rapid escalation on both the energy and financial fronts appears higher than at earlier stages of the standoff.
In earlier coverage, the outlet reported that Iran's security chief had warned Tehran may seek nuclear weapons after US strikes, and that Iran dismissed new US sanctions as desperate while a Hormuz shipping standstill continued:
