Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled on Thursday that President Donald Trump will use sanctions to cripple Iran’s Islamic regime and to bring Russia to the negotiating table to end its illegal war of aggression in Ukraine.
Bessent, who made the remarks while speaking to the Economic Club of New York, said that Trump was deploying aggressive sanctions against Iran for “immediate maximum impact.”
“We are going to shut down Iran’s oil sector and drone manufacturing capabilities,” Bessent said, adding that the administration also will cut off the regime’s access to the international financial system.
“Making Iran broke again will mark the beginning of our updated sanctions policy,” he added. “If I were an Iranian, I would get all my money out of the rial now.”
His remarks come after the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism allegedly tried on multiple occasions to assassinate Trump last year, including reports that they smuggled shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles into the U.S.
Trump, since taking office in January, said that the U.S. military has orders to destroy Iran if the Islamic regime were to assassinate him.
“If they did that they would be obliterated,” Trump said. “I’ve left instructions. If they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left.”
Bessent also spoke about imposing tough sanctions on Russia to force them to the negotiating table to bring their 3-year war in Ukraine to an end.
“A major factor that has enabled the Russian war machine’s continued financing was the Biden administration’s egregiously weak sanctions on Russian energy stemming from worries about upward pressure on U.S. energy prices during an election season,” Bessent said. “In a craven political move, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, raised the Russian sanctions on the way out the door in January.”
“What was the point of substantial U.S. military and financial support over the past three years without a commensurate and fulsome sanction support?” he continued. “This administration has kept the enhanced sanctions in place, and will not hesitate to go all in should it provide leverage in peace negotiations.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks at an Economic Club of New York event in New York City, U.S., March 6, 2025. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon Purchase Licensing Rights
REUTERS | Published March 7, 2025
NEW YORK, March 6 (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday strongly defended the Trump administration’s campaign to tear up global trade norms with tariffs and vowed to roll back regulations on American banks and crush Iran’s economy with sanctions.
In his first major speech to Wall Street executives, Bessent declared that President Donald Trump has begun an “aggressive campaign to rebalance the international economic system.”
He said the decades-old trading system built around U.S. demand soaking up the world’s exports is broken and unsustainable and tariffs will help fix it.
“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” Bessent told the Economic Club of New York.
“The American Dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility, and economic security. For too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this.”
Trump’s cascade of tariff actions over the past six weeks has whipsawed financial markets and prompted companies to pause some investment plans. As Bessent spoke, Trump further dialed back his 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, providing a one month exemption for any goods that meet the rules of origin under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade.
But Bessent’s remarks did little to slow another sell-off on Wall Street, as worries over tariffs and consumer spending pushed down major indices, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC), opens new tab falling 2.6% into correction mode.
Interviewed on stage by former Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow in front of an audience that included Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and GAMCO Investors CEO Mario Gabelli, Bessent – a hedge fund billionaire himself – warned that trading partners who retaliate will face even higher duties on their U.S. exports, calling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “numbskull” for doing just that.
“As President Trump has said many times, tariff is his favorite word. I would say that reciprocal is probably his second favorite word,” Bessent said.
“If you want to be a numbskull like Justin Trudeau and say, ‘oh, we’re going to do this,’ then … tariffs are going to go up. But if you want to sit back, have a discussion with the Commerce Department, USTR (U.S. Trade Representative) – they all have my phone number too – I am happy to have a discussion with our foreign counterpart.”
The U.S. has promised reciprocal tariffs starting April 2. Bessent said tariffs would deliver benefits on a number of fronts, including to lower-income families who stand to be hardest hit by the higher prices the levies will bring.
Far from being a regressive tax, he said, the “substantial” revenue from tariffs will help pay for tax cuts for earners in the bottom 50%, such as no taxes on tips.
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