🔶 Bessant: Iran’s financial resources to support its proxy forces are being cut off

Scott Bessant, U.S. Treasury Secretary, in response to a question about how long it would take for Iran to come to the negotiating table as a result of economic pressure, said: “I don’t have a specific time estimate, but what I can tell you is that last Wednesday, eight weeks since the start of the economic expulsion operation have passed, and this operation has been very successful.”

The U.S. Treasury Secretary, saying that “this is the most severe operation that has ever been carried out in the history of the world to isolate a country’s economy,” said: “We also see this in the data. As you said, the value of Iran’s national currency has fallen. The fall has been so severe that you may even be arrested because of the release of the exchange rate. So, you know, the exchange rate may have gone past three million rials.”

In another part of his remarks, Bessant added: “Our internal estimates show that Iran’s economy may contract by up to 25 percent between March and March of the following year, that is, from when the siege or conflict began, to 25 percent.”

Comparing the situation in Iran and Russia, the U.S. Treasury Secretary noted: “To make the scope of this clear, Russia’s economy shrank by 22 percent in the three years after the Iron Curtain fell. So, Iran’s economy may experience in one year what took place over 22 years.”