President Donald Trump's administration is shifting its confrontation with Iran toward intensified economic pressure, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggesting the strategy makes a renewed large-scale military conflict less likely even as Tehran warned that further U.S. threats would draw a "devastating" response.
Iranian military and political leaders responded sharply after Trump announced what he called an "ECONOMIC D-DAY," promising sweeping measures not only against Iran but potentially against foreign governments, financial institutions and businesses that provide Tehran with an economic lifeline.
"Iran's armed forces will respond to the enemy's new threats with crushing, punishing and devastating responses," Major General Ali Abdollahi, chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, said, according to local media.
The warning underscored the risk surrounding Washington's attempt to move the confrontation from direct military action toward financial isolation. The Trump administration is betting that greater pressure on Iran's economy can constrain Tehran without restarting the kind of large-scale combat that has destabilized the region.
Bessent made that calculation explicit Thursday. "If we are doing the maximum economic pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart," the Treasury secretary told CNBC.
His comments offered one of the clearest indications yet of how the administration views the next phase of its Iran strategy. Rather than immediately returning to extensive military operations, Washington is seeking to use sanctions and international economic leverage to weaken Tehran and pressure its government.
Trump outlined the strategy earlier this week in a social-media post, saying the U.S. would undertake the "most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country."
"This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale," Trump said. He also threatened major "economic consequences" for "ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran."
The warning significantly broadens the potential reach of Washington's campaign. Instead of focusing exclusively on Iranian entities, the approach threatens secondary economic consequences for countries and companies that continue facilitating Iranian commerce, raising the possibility that the confrontation could spill into U.S. relationships with governments that maintain ties with Tehran.
"This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat. These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide," Trump added.
Iranian officials have portrayed the pivot differently. Parliament Speaker Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf, who served as Tehran's chief negotiator with Washington earlier this year, argued that the emphasis on economic measures demonstrated that the U.S. had concluded it couldn't defeat Iran through military force.
"We must make plans to deal with the unjust sanctions so that we can overcome them," Qalibaf said. He also accused the U.S. and Israel of conducting what he described as "cognitive" warfare against Iran.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi separately sought to turn Trump's economic argument back against Washington, pointing to America's own deteriorating fiscal position as the national debt crossed $40 trillion. He described Trump's announcement as a diversion from America's "own crisis: unprecedented debt & surging interest costs."
"Doubling down on failed policies will only bring further defeat-and enmity of Iranians. US economic terrorism threatens global economy and sovereignty worldwide," Araghchi said.
