Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is set to detail Monday what the administration is calling "the toughest sanctions in history" against Iran, a campaign officials have nicknamed an "economic D-Day" aimed at severing the country's remaining financial lifelines. The announcement, expected at a Monday news conference, arrives on the same day a 60-day ceasefire between Washington and Tehran formally lapsed without a permanent settlement to the war now in its seventh month.
Bessent has described the effort as "the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled," according to a Financial Times op-ed he published ahead of the announcement, cited by The National. The new measures build on more than 6,000 sanctions already imposed on Iran's banking, energy, aviation and cryptocurrency sectors, and are expected to extend penalties to foreign banks, shipping firms and governments that continue trading with Tehran.
"You are either with us or against us."
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent
The warning is directed chiefly at China, which purchased more than 80 percent of Iran's seaborne oil exports in 2025 and draws roughly half its own energy imports from the Gulf, according to Kpler shipping data cited by The National. India and Turkey have also been named as remaining commercial lifelines for Tehran, while the United Arab Emirates has already severed trade and financial ties with Iran under earlier U.S. pressure.
A Truce Without a Peace
The ceasefire that expired Monday was reached in June and called for an immediate halt to hostilities, the lifting of a U.S. naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions relief for Iran, at least $300 billion in reconstruction funding, and an Iranian pledge to abandon any pursuit of nuclear weapons. In practice, the truce held for little more than a week before both sides resumed strikes, according to Scripps News.
The war, which began in February, has already killed at least 18 U.S. servicemembers and wounded more than 750, while Iranian officials have reported 168 schoolchildren killed on the conflict's opening day. A senior White House official has described current talks with Tehran as "static," and Iran has said it has not decided whether to resume negotiations.
Squeezing the Strait of Hormuz
Roughly a quarter of the world's seaborne oil once passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the war. Traffic has since slowed to a trickle — as few as two to ten tanker and commodity-ship transits a day in recent weeks, compared with dozens before the conflict — and Iran's central bank governor has said the country's oil exports have "fallen to zero," NBC News reported. A U.S. naval presence has helped cut flow through the strait to roughly 8 million barrels a day, down from more than 20 million before the war, a reduction equal to about a fifth of global oil consumption.
Iran has responded to the looming sanctions push by threatening to detain or confiscate ships that violate its transit rules, and its top security official has warned Tehran could halt oil flow through the strait entirely if neighboring states join the American pressure campaign, according to CNBC. An Iranian government spokesperson has called the sanctions push an "assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty over every independent member state." Oil prices have climbed on the uncertainty, gaining nearly 3 percent in the run-up to the ceasefire's expiration as traders weighed the risk of a full closure of the strait.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has called for a diplomatic resolution, even as military officials in Tehran have promised "devastating responses" to further pressure. Congress remains in its August recess, and no talks between the two governments are scheduled. Monday's announcement is likely to set the terms of the conflict's next phase — an economic siege fought over oil tankers, bank ledgers and the loyalties of Iran's remaining trading partners, rather than a battlefield contest alone.
