U.S. plans to sanction another bank in effort to clamp down on Iran transactions: Bessent

PresidentDonaldTrump’sadministration plans to impose sanctions on another bank this week as it intensified efforts to economically isolateIran,U.S. Treasury SecretaryScott Bessenttold The Associated Press on Sunday.

“This is going to be financial violence if we have to,” Bessent said in the interview. “We are showing people that we know who you are, you know who you are, and this has got to stop.”

Bessent spoke with the AP ahead of Group of 20 meetings inAsheville, North Carolina, where he will meet individually with his counterparts from the world’s major and developing economies to encourage cooperation againstIran.

TheTrumpadministration recently signaled that it would shiftfrom military strikes to economic pressureduring a war that recently reached the six-month mark, promising what it called an “economic D-Day” against a country thathas already weathered decades of punishing sanctions.

However, hostilities between theU.S. andIranflared on Sunday.U.S. forces struck Iranian rocket launcherson theStrait of Hormuzin their first military action in a month, breaking a lull in fighting.Iranvowed to retaliate for what it called a deadly attack.

In addition, the administration has mostly relied on warnings rather than new sanctions againstIran’strading partners. There’s also the question ofhowTrumpwill handleChina, which isIran’sbiggest trading partner and leading buyer of its oil.

Bessent told the AP he would speak to his Chinese counterparts at theG20meeting and “all options are on the table” in terms of sanctioningBeijingfor its continued purchases.

But he rejected the idea that the administration was reluctant to confrontChina, calling it “a completely false narrative that the media picked up on.” He insisted thatChinaand theU.S. agree on the need to reopen theStrait of Hormuzand preventIranfrom developing a nuclear weapon.

Treasury’s first official action in this campaign of economic pressure was a proposed rulemaking on Friday, which would, if finalized, sever theEmiratibranches of Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-largest bank, from access to theU.S. financial system.

In stopping short of imposing sanctions on the Egyptian bank, the Republican administration appeared to be signaling its reluctance to penalize major trading partners that do business withIran, includingChinaandIndia.