Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Iran will take in zero oil revenue this week for the first time in history, as Tehran’s leaders warn of a deepening economic crisis under U.S. pressure.
Iran is set to have no oil at sea and no oil revenues this week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Saturday, calling it a first since the country began pumping crude. Iranian officials, meeting the same day, described the economic squeeze as among the hardest stretches the country has faced and said the government had shifted into a “new posture” for what President Masoud Pezeshkian called “special conditions.”
Breitbart News reported Bessent’s remarks as the latest marker in a three-stage U.S. campaign that moved from military strikes to a naval blockade and then to full economic isolation. The claim lands as the rial trades near historic lows, inflation sits above 70 percent, and Washington keeps the Strait of Hormuz under what War Secretary Pete Hegseth called an ironclad blockade.
Bessent framed the moment as the payoff after months of pressure. He said the United States first used force, then sealed the waterway, and is now choking the regime’s remaining money channels.
"For the first time in history, since they started pumping oil, they will have no oil on the water this week,"
Bessent said. He added a second line without cushion:
"They will have no revenues."
Bessent traced the sequence in plain terms. A roughly six-week military campaign that began in late February came first. Then came the blockade the president calls the Iron Wall. Then Operation Economic Outcast.
"We had kinetic,"
Bessent said. He continued:
"We destroyed their navy, their air force, substantially depleted their drone and missile capability, destroyed their chances of rebuilding that."
Next came the waterway cutoff no prior administration had locked in the same way.
"Then we went to what the president calls the Iron Wall and the blockade, which we’d never done before,"
Bessent said. The third phase, he added, is economic isolation “like has never happened before.”
"Right now, the score, in terms of barrels out of the strait: U.S. about 1.1 billion, Iran zero,"
he said. Last weekend, roughly 15 million barrels loaded before the blockade were still aboard tankers, with the final cargoes headed largely to China. Once those ships delivered, Bessent had predicted, Tehran would have “nothing left to trade.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that supplies moving through the Strait of Hormuz have continued to rise in recent weeks. Goldman Sachs analysts estimated Persian Gulf oil exports at roughly 23.3 million barrels per day over the past week, traffic the U.S. says it is protecting even as Iranian loadings collapse.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected Tehran’s claims of control over the waterway and said the blockade is holding.
"Iran wants to play games with things like the Strait of Hormuz. They don’t control it. We do,"
Hegseth said. He added that Iran has “literally gotten nothing through,” that the blockade has been “ironclad,” and that traffic is running “almost at prewar levels every single night.” The United States, he said, can keep the blockade “as long as we need to.” He urged Tehran to “make the right choice,” warning that if it does not, “the president’s going to have all the options he needs on the table.”
President Donald Trump, speaking after a Friday Camp David session on Iran, kept the choice binary. “Iran has been decimated,” he said. “So the only question is it’ll either be the easy way or the hard way.” On Saturday he said he was approaching a decision: “We have a decision that I’ll make about Iran.” Asked about the Camp David talks, he told reporters, “If I told you, you would have a major story,” then added that “it is working out very well” and “Iran is not doing well.”
Vice President JD Vance chaired the previously unannounced multi-hour Camp David meeting. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House envoy Steve Witkoff, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, Bessent, and Hegseth attended. An unnamed U.S. official said “things were decided or at least deeply discussed.”
The economic phase did not start this weekend. In August, Bessent rolled out Operation Economic Outcast as a campaign to cut the regime’s remaining lifelines and warn other countries off Iranian oil, energy, and business deals. The New York Post reported the launch included new authorities aimed at digital assets, gold, aviation, and shipping, plus sanctions on more than 60 entities tied to illicit nuclear and missile technology, cyber operations, and shadow oil fleets. Bessent warned nations not to do business with Tehran and said the clock had started ticking.
Just the News reported the same package as a zero-leakage effort aimed at enablers who buy Iranian oil, move money, and keep the shadow fleet running, with China flagged as a major buyer. Bessent said Iran faces a clear choice between complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back toward normal trade. “There will be no minimal breathing space for the regime to rebuild its capacity to inflict terror against America and the world,” he said then.
Fresh designations kept coming. The Washington Free Beacon reported sanctions on Iranian petroleum minister Mohsen Paknejad for overseeing tens of billions in oil exports and allocating crude to the armed forces, along with vessels and operators in the shadow fleet moving illicit Iranian oil, much of it toward China. Treasury’s line was direct: it will fight and disrupt attempts by the regime to fund destabilizing activity. Around 200,000 barrels per day had been allocated to the armed forces, with plans described for a sharp increase that could push the value above $10 billion a year.
On Thursday, Treasury expanded sanctions again, this time targeting Iran’s automotive and rail industries and foreign suppliers. Officials said the aim is to restrict resources for the military, missile and drone programs, cyber operations, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Inside Iran, the numbers are ugly. The rial traded at roughly 2.69 million to the dollar on Saturday and has lost more than half its value over the past year. Inflation has climbed above 70 percent. Iran’s central bank is offering up to $2 billion in U.S. currency through state banks to prop up the rial. Reuters has reported Iranians exhausting savings, losing jobs, moving, and cutting spending.
Iran’s top national security official, Mohsen Rezaei, told a high-level Saturday meeting with Pezeshkian and senior ministers that the country is in one of its most difficult periods, according to state-run IRNA, which did not publish his full remarks. Pezeshkian acknowledged that economic conditions had worsened and said the government had adopted a “new posture” to manage “special conditions.”
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf drew a hard line on the waterway Sunday.
"The Strait of Hormuz will not open until our seven conditions based on the Islamabad Memorandum are met,"
he said. That June framework had set a ceasefire and a path toward reopening Hormuz and broader talks before Iran resumed attacks on commercial vessels and the arrangement broke down. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said there is “no military solution, nor any solution based on new sanctions,” argued that talks based on “justice and fairness” are the only path, and warned that if Iran’s enemies “again choose the path of military confrontation, our response will be stronger than before.” Iranian officials said Sunday that Washington had answered Tehran’s latest proposal through intermediaries; Trump had already rejected an earlier version as insufficient, and the reply remained under Iranian review.
Iran’s army announced Sunday it has begun increasing the range and speed of its missiles. Brig. Gen. Mohammad Akraminia said the military intends to upgrade missiles to reach adversaries at distances of up to 1,000 kilometers after concluding that U.S. forces operate farther from Iranian shores.
Bessent’s “first time in history” line is not a slogan. It is a ledger claim: no Iranian oil on the water, no revenue this week, after a kinetic campaign, an ironclad blockade, and a sanctions net built to stop the usual workarounds. Hegseth says the United States, not Iran, controls the strait and can hold the line as long as needed. Trump says the regime has been decimated and now faces the easy way or the hard way.
Tehran answers with currency collapse, inflation above 70 percent, a central-bank dollar stopgap, seven conditions tied to a broken memorandum, and fresh missile boasts. The regime still talks as if time and other people’s money will save it. The barrels leaving the strait this week say otherwise.
When a government that spent decades funding terror and proxies finally runs a week with empty tanks and empty accounts, that is not cruelty from the outside. That is accountability catching up.
