Scott Bessent Announces He Is Tightening the Screws Not Just on Iran But On Its Trading Partners

JusttheNews:

Bessent unveils 'Operation Economic Outcast' sanctions targeting Iranian regime

The measures, which the Treasury Secretary first teased last week, are designed to punish "enablers" of Iran that purchase its oil and facilitate financial flows.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Monday a new raft of sanctions targeting the Iranian regime dubbed "Operation Economic Outcast," which he compared to the historic D-Day landings during World War II.

"Iran now faces a very clear choice, with only two paths before them: complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back to normalcy with an opportunity to rejoin the global economy," Bessent told reporters at a 1:00 PM press conference.

These new measures are designed to ramp up pressure on Iran's "enablers," which Bessent has called out for purchasing Iran's petroleum products, allowing their financial systems and banks to facilitate transfers of Iranian funds, and allowing Iran's shadow fleet to transfer oil products in their territorial waters. Bessent and President Donald Trump indicated last week that the United States planned to shift to a comprehensive economic blockade of the Islamic Republic, hoping to strangle the regime by cutting off its economic lifelines.

"We are enforcing a zero leakage approach. There will be no minimal breathing space for the regime to rebuild its capacity to inflict terror against America and the world," the secretary said. "The final refuge of this regime is the mistaken conclusion of nations that still finance the Iranian threat in the hopes of evading it. It is no longer acceptable to operate in the gray spaces of this conflict. Countries cannot claim they are blind to enabling this activity."

The sanctions, Bessent said, are designed to target five of Iran's lifelines during the conflict: "digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping."

The Treasury Department will sanction "over 60 entities, individuals, and vessels" globally that officials believe enable Iran to purchase nuclear and missile technology, carry out cyber operations, and allow it to generate oil revenue.

...

China has purchased the vast majority of Iranian oil for years, even while its exports are under international sanctions. Chinese banks and front companies help Iran with oil transactions to avoid the sanctions and operate ships in a shadow fleet to transport the sanctioned oil, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. China has also sold Iran the technology and inputs required to construct its fleet of attack drones and missiles.

Lee Smith wonders if Bessent and Trump really mean it -- are they actually going to punish Turkey and China for trading with Iran?

Lee Smith @LeeSmithDC

2h

It would be great if Trump admin targets Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia and especially China for Iran dealings. But since that's very unlikely, what's really happening here?

Trump is threatening an "Economic D-Day" and says Iran is collapsing.

On social media, Trump posted "Iran is completely collapsing" hours after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a column for the Financial Times, declared that an "economic D-Day" had begun against Tehran and warned that any country that continued to enable the Islamic Republic would become a "global pariah".

Bessent also claimed on X that the US had "dismantled Iran's military capabilities, destroyed nearly 100 percent of its military factories, and buried its nuclear programme".

Meanwhile, the US is escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz and a fair amount of oil is flowing. Though Iranian attacks have definitely slowed the flow.

The U.S. military has quietly established a shipping corridor in and out of the Strait of Hormuz to transport millions of barrels of oil each day -- a notable success even as the broader war remains at a stalemate, two U.S. officials told Axios.

Under the operation, which has been underway for the last several weeks, 15--20 tankers have entered and exited the strait each night through a southern channel along the coast of Oman.
About 10 million barrels of oil a day -- roughly half the pre-war volume -- are being transported out of the strait and injected into the global energy market, the officials said.

Why it matters: The U.S.-led operation is mitigating one of the most painful aspects of the war: the disruption to oil supplies that sent crude prices soaring. While the amount of oil coming out of the strait is still below pre-war levels, it is making a discernible difference in global supplies, officials say.

If you wondered why the media was pushing the new PsyOp -- we can't have sailors stationed on aircraft carriers for months at a time, sailors didn't sign up for the Navy to spend months aboard warships! -- this is why. It's working, so the Communist-Islamist propaganda machine goes to work to convince Americans to just give up and let Iran have its nuclear bombs.

Here's CNN's efforts to aid and abet the Iranian terror regime. It's paylocked, so here's a digest:

A CNN report detailed severe supply shortages and daily hardships--including a lack of fresh food and milk--aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during its record-breaking deployment in the Middle East

.Deployment Hardships

Record Time at Sea: The ship spent over 250 consecutive days deployed without a port call, straining both the crew and supplies.

Supply Disruptions: Combat actions and regional supply chain damage in the Middle East forced lengthy detours for resupply.

Rations and Shortages: Crew members and their families reported limited food options, smaller portions, and a lack of basic items like fresh milk, soap, and toothpaste.

Official Response

Government Denials: President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed the reports of poor living conditions and food shortages as "fake news" or misrepresented.

Congressional Concern: Lawmakers pressed the Pentagon for answers regarding the crew's well-being and mental health support.

There are a few points here: Yes, spending 250 days at sea is a hardship. On the other hand, this is a war, and while I appreciate servicemen experience hardships during war, I can't say that not having fresh milk, just the powdered kind, is a hardship enough that we should take a $13 billion aircraft carrier out of the fight.

Also, so I never served in the military, but one thing I've picked up from movies, reading, and hearing veterans talk, is that military people complain about their conditions a lot. They have a fair amount to complain about, and complaining is their outlet. Complaining is a sport in the military, just like jerking off guys for $15 a man is a sport for garrett.

We've never changed war policy over complaints about not having fresh milk before.

CNN wants to institute this as a new National Imperative, because they're on the other side and always have been. Same as they used to track casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan when Bush was president and then immediately stopped tracking them with Captain Cocksucker became president.

I get interested in historical recipes thanks to Max Miller's "Tasting History" channel, and I coincidentally searched for videos about shipboard eating.

Yes, sailors have been complaining about their chow since WWII (and of course for centuries before that). It's never been great. Sometimes you get fresh food but a lot of the time you eat canned or powdered food. And sometimes the cooks just want to use up all the leftover food they have, so they throw it randomly into a big stew they call by the mysterious and disturbing term "slumgullion."

But sure, let's recall the USS Abraham Lincoln because they're not getting restocked with fresh milk.

I was watching another military-grub video about army rations, A B C D. The troops were thrilled to get "A Rations" -- that's the fresh stuff -- but mostly were lucky to get B rations (the powdered and canned stuff, but cooked hot in chow trucks) and usually had to settle for C rations (boxed lunches including canned meat and biscuits) or D rations (an emergency chocolate bar ration where the chocolate was designed to be not very good so that troops wouldn't eat it except in emergency conditions).

I want to say again that I do appreciate that being away from home -- or simply away from solid earth -- for long stretches is a hardship, and, of course, lacking decent food or creature comforts for weeks or even months at a time is worth complaining about, and worth it for civilians to hear about.

But this is an op. The same as the last twenty hostile, in-service-to-foreign-powers ops the media has run.

There was literally a screengrab from CNN's piece where the subtitles show a heavyset older white woman saying something like, "My son didn't sign up for the Navy to be at sea for months at a time."

No? He didn't? What do you think he was signing up for, Karen?

CNN does not care about the comfort of the sailors, whom they consider to be racist, colonialist Toxically Masculine deplorable Trump voters.

They care about the comfort of the Iranian mullahs, Barack Obama's besties.

They really want to do a Casualty Death-Count for the war, but because there are so few, they're on to the alternative psyop, "People are sick of having powdered milk in their coffee and cereal."

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:43 PM

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