U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the Trump administration’s deal with Iran on Wednesday, saying that lifting sanctions to allow Tehran to earn billions of dollars in oil revenue in order to restore the status quo ante was a smart move.
“We had maximum pressure, then we had Epic Fury, then we had Economic Fury, and then we had the blockade. And that’s how we got the Iranians to the negotiating table,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC. (The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action also got Iran to the table but with verifiable limits on the country’s nuclear program.)
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the Trump administration’s deal with Iran on Wednesday, saying that lifting sanctions to allow Tehran to earn billions of dollars in oil revenue in order to restore the status quo ante was a smart move.
“We had maximum pressure, then we had Epic Fury, then we had Economic Fury, and then we had the blockade. And that’s how we got the Iranians to the negotiating table,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC. (The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action also got Iran to the table but with verifiable limits on the country’s nuclear program.)
The U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding, which may have ended months of war—if it holds—provides upfront sanctions relief for Iran as well as a pledge to work out, as part of a final deal, a plan to give the country hundreds of billions of dollars in reconstruction funds furnished by unspecified “regional partners.” To critics in both Israel and the United States, including some in President Donald Trump’s own Republican Party, this was not the art of the deal.
“If you are giving all your concessions up front, and the other side doesn’t have to give anything, I think the agreement speaks for itself,” said Edward Fishman, an expert on sanctions and financial warfare at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Still, Bessent tried to defend the administration’s approach to Iran. “We didn’t have a regime change, but we changed the regime,” Bessent said. While it is true that the individuals in power in Tehran today are not the same ones who were in power before the war, experts say the country’s new leaders are more assertive and less risk-averse than even their predecessors. That is in part due to Tehran’s enhanced position in the Strait of Hormuz. (U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, tagging in to give Bessent a breather, said on Wednesday that “Iran will not have the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz going forward.”)
Iran and Oman are now working out exactly how they will manage future flows of shipping through one of the world’s key chokepoints. That point of leverage didn’t exist before this February. Shipping through the strait is slowly recovering but is not near prewar levels (nor are oil prices, yet, nor prices at the pump.)
The Trump administration is “paying Iran to allow ships to move through the Strait of Hormuz. This is a key difference with 2015,” said Fishman, referring to the Obama-era deal that capped Iran’s nuclear ambitions coupled with limited sanctions relief. “I don’t think we got played. I think we got coerced.”
Bessent had more to say, including a pitch for a stronger U.S. dollar, which is understandable for most treasury secretaries—but not those who work for Trump, who has spent years talking down the dollar.
“Dollar dominance is essential,” Bessent said, overlooking the fact that its dominance is declining. China, Russia, and Iran are increasingly turning to non-dollar transactions not only to circumvent U.S. financial sanctions but also to supplant the dollar as the world’s medium of exchange. They aren’t there yet, but the greenback is ailing. That could be a problem if the United States wants to continue to use sanctions and financial warfare as a weapon, as it increasingly has since the 1990s, but it is not yet existential.
The bigger problem is that the Trump administration, and Bessent himself, has signed off on a tentative deal that gives Tehran all the carrots and preserves few realistic sticks. Trump has no appetite to restart a war a few months before the U.S. midterm elections but seems happy to give away the farm.
“I think the sequencing is the tell. In 2015, Iran did not get any relief until the International Atomic Energy Agency verified it,” Fishman said. “This time, all the sanctions relief is front-loaded.”
This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage. Read more here.
