Bessent Says U.S. Will Sanction Another Bank This Week in Iran Economic Pressure Campaign

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the Trump administration plans to impose sanctions on an additional bank this week, escalating efforts to economically isolate Iran amid an ongoing conflict that recently passed the six-month mark.

Bessent made the announcement in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of Group of 20 meetings in Asheville, North Carolina, where he is scheduled to meet individually with counterparts from the world's major and developing economies to press for cooperation against Tehran.

"This is going to be financial violence if we have to," Bessent told the AP. "We are showing people that we know who you are, you know who you are, and this has got to stop."

The administration has described its approach as an "economic D-Day" against Iran, signaling a shift away from military strikes toward sustained economic pressure. That framing was complicated on Sunday, however, when U.S. forces struck Iranian rocket launchers in the Strait of Hormuz — the first military action in roughly a month, breaking what had been a period of relative quiet. Iran vowed to retaliate for what it called a deadly attack.

The Treasury Department's first formal action in the economic campaign came Friday, when it issued a proposed rulemaking that would, if finalized, cut the Emirati branches of Banque Misr — Egypt's second-largest bank — off from access to the U.S. financial system. Notably, the move stopped short of imposing direct sanctions on the Egyptian institution, a distinction analysts view as reflecting the administration's reluctance to penalize major trading partners that maintain commercial ties with Iran.

That reluctance is most visible when it comes to China. Beijing is Iran's largest trading partner and its leading buyer of oil, yet the administration has so far relied primarily on warnings rather than concrete new sanctions against Iran's trading partners.

Bessent said he would address the issue directly with Chinese counterparts at the G20 gathering, adding that "all options are on the table" regarding potential sanctions on Beijing for continued oil purchases. He pushed back sharply on characterizations that the administration was hesitant to confront China, calling it "a completely false narrative that the media picked up on." He also said both countries share an interest in reopening the Strait of Hormuz and preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

India, another significant buyer of Iranian oil, also falls into the category of major trading partners the administration has yet to act against formally, underscoring the tension between the scope of the stated economic campaign and the geopolitical constraints shaping its execution.

The G20 meetings in Asheville provide Bessent with a concentrated window for bilateral diplomacy — a setting where the administration appears to be betting that peer pressure from allied finance ministers can supplement and amplify the Treasury's unilateral tools.

Whether the forthcoming bank sanction represents a meaningful escalation or a continuation of the incremental approach defined by the Banque Misr rulemaking will likely determine how markets and governments assess the administration's willingness to follow through on its "economic D-Day" pledge.