US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the United States is entering the “endgame” of its confrontation with Iran, declaring that the Trump administration is preparing to unleash what he described as an unprecedented financial campaign aimed at cutting Tehran off from its remaining economic lifelines.
Bessent’s warning comes after the administration says Iran has suffered devastating damage to its military infrastructure and nuclear program, with Washington now preparing to shift the pressure toward an aggressive effort to economically isolate the Islamic Republic.
“President Trump has dismantled Iran’s military capabilities, destroyed nearly 100 percent of its military factories, and buried its nuclear program,” Bessent wrote on social media.
“We are now entering the endgame. At dawn begins an economic D-Day – the single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary,” he added.
According to Bessent, the Trump administration has overturned the longstanding dynamic in which Tehran operated on the assumption that threats of Iranian retaliation would deter the United States from taking decisive action.
“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,” warned Bessent.
Bessent said the administration has also prepared the foundation for a far-reaching effort to target the sources of revenue and financial connections that continue to sustain the Iranian government.
The Treasury secretary further stated that Trump “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.”
The remarks came several days after Trump announced a broad new economic campaign against Iran. Writing Wednesday on Truth Social, the president characterized the initiative as “an economic D-Day” and put countries that continue providing Tehran with economic assistance on notice that they could face repercussions.
“These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide. IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” he wrote.
Bessent had already signaled the previous week that sweeping new measures were imminent, indicating that the administration intended to pursue a degree of economic isolation that Washington had never previously attempted against another country.
“Watch this space for more announcements coming next week because we are going to apply measures like have never been seen in the history of economic isolation on a country,” Bessent told Newsmax.
He said the strategy would combine extraordinary financial pressure with restrictions surrounding Iranian maritime commerce.
“It will be a combination of economic isolation like the world has never seen before, and the continued blockade in the Strait of Hormuz that will keep anything from going in or out of the Iranian ports,” he added.
{Matzav.com}
