Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that Iran could have “nothing left to trade for anything” within about two weeks, once its remaining oil shipments reach China. He argued that the Trump administration’s economic pressure campaign has pushed Tehran “to its knees” and is prompting the regime to pursue a deal.
Bessent said roughly 15 million barrels of Iranian oil remain at sea as the United States enforces a blockade on Iran’s exports. Once those shipments are delivered, Tehran could be close to losing one of its last significant sources of revenue.
“I am confident, given that there are only 15 million more barrels of Iranian oil on the water, that Iran will have nothing left to trade for anything,” Bessent told Fox News’s Larry Kudlow on Sunday Morning Futures.
He estimated that the remaining supply would be delivered within approximately two weeks.
“Probably within the next two weeks, they are going to make their final deliveries of oil to China, and then they will have nothing,” Bessent said. “It is an empty set, and I believe they are feeling the pressure here and that’s why they want a deal.”
Bessent spoke as President Donald Trump rejected Tehran’s latest offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while indicating that negotiations could resume this week. Trump said Iran is now seeking terms that Washington might have accepted before the war began.
“They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make,” Trump told Axios on Sunday. “It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago. They overplayed their hand.”
Bessent said Iran’s offer to reopen the strait within seven days should not be viewed as a major concession, noting that millions of barrels of oil from other countries are already passing through the waterway under U.S. protection.
“The straits are open,” Bessent said. “If you take out the Iranian oil, which we are not letting out, we’re averaging now 15 to 22 million barrels a day; it was at about 20 pre-conflict.”
He presented the oil flows as a stark indication of the balance of power in the strategic waterway.
“Think of it this way: the score is United States, one billion — more than one billion barrels have gotten out — and Iran, zero.”
The blockade is operating alongside Operation Economic Outcast, a broad financial pressure campaign that Bessent launched at Trump’s direction in late August. The effort is aimed at cutting off Iran’s remaining economic lifelines and excluding the regime from the international financial system.
The initiative has reached beyond Iran’s borders. Treasury officials have contacted more than 50 countries, urging governments, banks, airlines, and companies to choose between preserving business ties with Tehran and retaining access to the United States. Jonathan Burke, Treasury’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing, recently carried that message to Iran’s commercial partners during visits to the Middle East and Europe.
Bessent pointed to several developments as evidence of the campaign’s impact. He said U.S. pressure led Turkey and Oman to take action against Iran’s Mahan Air, the United Arab Emirates to suspend Iranian airline service and restrict Bank Melli, and Turkey to act against Bank Mellat. Treasury has also widened its focus to Iran’s maritime, cryptocurrency, and other sanctions-evasion networks.
Bessent said Sunday that the combined measures are steadily cutting Iran off from the global economy.
“They are isolated from the world,” he said. “They are a pariah state.”
Trump echoed Bessent’s assessment Sunday evening, describing the economic campaign and U.S. military pressure as complementary parts of the broader conflict with Iran.
Asked by Fox News whether Treasury’s economic campaign could help the United States prevail, Trump said he expected both economic and military pressure to produce results.
“I think both,” Trump said. “I think we’ll win it both ways.”
He also said the United States had “already won it, really, from a military standpoint,” while warning that the campaign against Iran may not yet be finished.
“That doesn’t mean we’ve stopped that,” he said. “But we’re certainly winning it very big.”
Trump predicted the conflict would end “very soon” and cast preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon as the overriding U.S. objective.
“And the key is Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump emphasized. “That’s the key to the whole thing.”
That nuclear demand is now at the center of efforts to revive negotiations. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that mediators are pressing Tehran to offer a concession on its nuclear program following Trump’s rejection of Iran’s proposal, although Iran has so far given them little indication that it is prepared to do so.
Tehran has sought relief from the blockade and sanctions, access to billions of dollars in frozen assets and other concessions as part of a return to negotiations. Washington, meanwhile, has insisted that Iran address its nuclear program and sees little reason to surrender leverage that administration officials argue is strengthening by the day.
Bessent made clear that he sees the pressure campaign as serving a purpose beyond simply bringing Tehran back to the negotiating table: changing the terms under which Iran arrives there and ensuring that any new agreement is harder for the regime to abandon.
“My job is to make sure that, when they come with a deal, that they want to stick to it,” Bessent said, pointing to Iran’s failure to abide by the previous memorandum of understanding.
This time, he argued, Washington intends to negotiate from a dramatically different position.
“Next time, if there is a deal — and that’s at President Trump’s discretion — they will stick to it,” Bessent said. “Because they are on their knees.”
Joshua Klein is a reporter for – News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.