U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent breaks down Operation Economic Fury and the pressure against the Iranian regime on ‘Kudlow.’
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States’ maximum economic pressure campaign on Iran has sent the regime into “crisis” during an appearance Wednesday on “Kudlow.”
The effort, known as Operation Economic Fury, is aimed at crippling Tehran’s financial lifelines by seizing Iranian assets, freezing bank accounts and pressuring foreign governments to cut ties with the nation.
“We are freezing bank accounts everywhere. More importantly, we are making people less willing to deal with the regime,” Bessent said.
“We can see that every day, it is more pressure on the regime. The retirement funds that they thought that they had outside of Iran, we are freezing. We’re holding those for the Iranian people. Same with all their villas in the south of France and all over the world, and we are going to track them down.”
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A street money exchanger poses for a photo without showing his face as he counts Iranian banknotes at a commercial district in downtown Tehran, Iran, Dec. 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File / Associated Press)
Bessent reported the Treasury Department has seized nearly $500 million in Iranian cryptocurrency assets, adding that the seizures are being carried out on behalf of the Iranian people.
The treasury secretary explained the United States’ aggressive economic campaign against Iran has been over a year in the making, but the United States is “sprinting” toward the finish line.
President Donald Trump ordered the Treasury Department to launch the campaign in March 2025, which Bessent said helped push Iran toward an economic standstill in December, when the nation’s largest bank collapsed.
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“That created massive inflation. Their currency is down about 60 or 70% versus the U.S. dollar, so they’re in the middle of a currency crisis,” he said.
Bessent said the Treasury Department recently received orders to intensify economic pressure on Iran, prompting the agency to send warnings to buyers of Iranian oil.
Tankers are seen at the Khor Fakkan Container Terminal, the only natural deep-sea port in the region and one of the major container ports in the Sharjah Emirate, along the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil output pass (Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“President Trump told me three weeks ago to up the pressure again,” he told FOX Business. “We have gone to the buyers of Iranian oil and told them that… we are willing to do secondary sanctions on your industries, on your banks who tolerate Iranian oil in their system.”
Bessent argued that the combination of Operation Economic Fury and the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz will inflict permanent damage on Tehran’s economy.
“The port at Kharg Island is at a virtual standstill in terms of loadings,” he said. “We think that the Iranian storage will be full soon. They’ll have to start capping in their wells, which will lead to permanent problems.”
He warned that the pressure campaign could leave Iran unable to fund its military and proxies.
Scott Bessent says the Treasury Department has seized nearly $500 million worth of Iran’s crypto assets. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“The regime won’t be able to pay their soldiers, and equally important, is they won’t be able to fund their proxies, whether it’s Hezbollah, Hamas, around the world. One of President Trump’s goals in this was to stop Iran’s ability to project terrorist power around the world.”
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Bessent said the Treasury’s economic pressure campaign will continue as U.S.-Iran negotiations stall.
“We are going to continue this — the economic pressure as well as the block on the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
