Bessent Tells the World to Stay Away From Iran as Sanctions Suffocate Its Economy

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued his most comprehensive and unsparing assessment yet of Iran's economic condition on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, telling countries around the world to stay away from Iran in a Fox News interview following a G20 gathering in North Carolina, warning that airlines, the maritime industry, and digital assets are all possible targets under Iran sanctions, and declaring that malicious actors will be systematically removed.

"My message to everyone is stay away," Bessent told Fox and Friends on Wednesday. "We all want this conflict to end, and the fastest way for the conflict to end is for no one to provide any support to this regime. No one should support this regime."

The interview came one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin threw his public support behind Iran, prompting Bessent to address the Russia dimension of the sanctions campaign directly. Asked about Russian support for Tehran, Bessent warned "everyone" against backing Iran, a formulation that encompasses both Moscow and Beijing simultaneously. "We are having very fulsome talks with anyone supporting the regime," he added, confirming that Washington is in active dialogue with every government that continues to engage economically or diplomatically with Tehran.

On the expansion of sanctions targets, Bessent confirmed that airlines, shipping, and digital assets could all be hit under the Iran sanctions framework. He had said on Tuesday that the administration could also target airline leasing companies and that more Iran bank sanctions could come this week. "Going to systemically take out bad actors," Bessent said on Fox News, describing the approach as a deliberate and sequential campaign rather than a series of isolated designations.

On China's role at the G20, Bessent was pointed but measured. "Unfortunate that the Chinese didn't want to come along," he said, referring to Beijing's refusal to join the G20 finance ministers' statement against Iran. China remains Iran's largest oil buyer and its most important remaining economic partner, and its absence from any coordinated G20 financial pressure statement represents the most significant gap in the coalition Washington is attempting to build around Operation Economic Outcast.

Bessent delivered a series of sweeping declarations covering every dimension of the economic campaign against Iran in the same period. He confirmed that Iranian officials themselves have acknowledged serious economic problems, that the Iranian toman has collapsed, that inflation in Iran has now exceeded 100 percent, and that Iran is unable to pay its soldiers' salaries, a development that strikes at the most basic capacity of the Islamic Republic to maintain its security apparatus. He also announced that more than 17 million barrels of oil transited the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, the highest single-day figure disclosed by a senior American official since the conflict began, a direct rebuttal to Iranian claims of effective control over the waterway.

Bessent's Fox News appearance came as the broader military and economic campaign against Iran reached its most intensive phase simultaneously. CENTCOM announced a "Tanker for Tanker" policy targeting Iranian oil tankers in response to commercial vessel attacks, and struck approximately 100 Iranian military targets overnight in the most comprehensive single American operation since Operation Epic Fury began. The Treasury Secretary's Wednesday declarations provide the economic framing for a conflict the Trump administration is pursuing on every front simultaneously, with weekly sanctions, bank targeting, airline leasing restrictions, maritime sanctions, and digital asset seizures all in motion at the same time.