Treasury Imposes More Iran Sanctions as War Approval Plummets

During a press conference on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent imposed what he called “an economic D-Day” onslaught of sanctions intended to cut Iran off from the world economy. Operation Economic Outcast will isolate every other country participating in purchasing goods from Iran or helping the country to evade existing sanctions. Bessent said the goal is to sever every economic tie available to the Iranian regime and force them to the negotiating table, where they could be given a path to rejoin the world economy.

But the sanctions will not take immediate effect. Bessent said that Treasury has mapped out every facilitator and channel Iran has used and that President Trump is making phone calls to world leaders with “specific requests.” Bessent did not share the timeline given to affected countries or which world leaders are on the call sheet. Furthermore, he said that teams from the Treasury, State, and Defense departments are meeting with their global counterparts to deliver the ultimatum.

“It is no longer acceptable to operate in the gray spaces of this conflict. Countries cannot claim they are blind to enabling this activity,” Bessent said.

The United States has already announced extensive secondary sanctions against Iran and its trading partners, but not all of them have been enforced over the past year. Iran has also not changed its posture because of the sanctions, but the economy is taking a hit. As of Monday, the Iranian rial dropped to 2 million to the U.S. dollar. Bessent warned that other nations that aid the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps will likewise be cut off from American currency.

As of Monday, pollster Nate Silver’s “Silver Bulletin” found that around 37% of Americans support the war against Iran and just over 55% oppose it. The latest Economist/YouGov poll found that the share of Americans who believe going to war was the wrong decision rose six percentage points since April. Roughly half of all adult U.S. citizens expect the war to last at least another year.

Trump’s disapproval rating is currently at 56%, according to the RCP Average. But the president disputes negative polling, particularly after the self-described polling company Median Strategies announced its data was not real and that its polls on the Wisconsin gubernatorial race and the Los Angeles mayoral race were “a social experiment.” In a radio interview with former personal lawyer Michael Cohen released Sunday, Trump said the public understands Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

“I think that we’re doing really well in the polls, the real polls,” Trump said. “If I were running today, I think I’d win by 25 points.”

On Monday, the president posted on Truth Social that “radical Left Democrats are going crazy with fake polls.”