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 increased the regime’s urgency to reach an agreement.
According to Bessent, roughly 15 million barrels of Iranian crude are still in transit. With the United States continuing to block Iran’s oil exports, Tehran is nearing the loss of one of its last significant sources of income.
“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 host Larry Kudlow on Sunday Morning Futures.
He estimated that the remaining supply could 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’s comments came after President Donald Trump turned down Tehran’s latest offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even as he indicated that discussions could resume this week. Trump said Iran is now proposing terms that Washington might have accepted before the conflict 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. He pointed to the millions of barrels of oil from other nations that 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 flow of oil through the strategic waterway as evidence that the United States currently holds the upper hand.
“Think of it this way: the score is United States, one billion — more than one billion barrels have gotten out — and Iran, zero.”
The oil blockade is operating alongside Operation Economic Outcast, a broad financial pressure campaign that Bessent launched at Trump’s direction in late August. The initiative aims to cut off Iran’s remaining economic channels and push the regime further away from the global financial system.
Washington’s effort has reached well beyond Iran’s borders. Treasury officials have contacted more than 50 countries, warning governments, financial institutions, airlines, and companies that continued business with Tehran could jeopardize their access to the United States. Jonathan Burke, the Treasury’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing, recently carried that message to Iranian trading partners in the Middle East and Europe.
Bessent cited several developments as evidence of the campaign’s impact. He said pressure from Washington prompted Turkey and Oman to act against Iran’s Mahan Air, led the United Arab Emirates to suspend Iranian airline operations and restrict Bank Melli, and pushed Turkey to take measures against Bank Mellat. Treasury has also intensified efforts targeting Iran’s maritime networks, cryptocurrency channels, and other methods of evading sanctions.
Bessent said the combined effect is steadily cutting Iran off from international commerce.
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“They are isolated from the world,” he said. “They are a pariah state.”
Trump echoed that view Sunday night, describing the economic campaign led by the Treasury Department and the U.S. military operation as two connected elements of the broader confrontation with Iran.
When Fox News asked whether the United States could succeed through the Treasury-led pressure campaign, Trump said he expected both economic and military efforts to produce results.
“I think both,” Trump said. “I think we’ll win it both ways.”
He also claimed that the United States had “already won it, really, from a military standpoint,” while acknowledging that the wider campaign 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.”
