Bessent says US is 'suffocating' Iran with oil industry creaking

María Paula Mijares Torres, Hadriana Lowenkron, Bloomberg News on May 3, 2026

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. is “suffocating” Iran with economic and financial pressure, suggesting that the rulers in Tehran will eventually buckle.

“We are running a marathon over the past 12 months and now we are sprinting toward the finish line,” Bessent said Sunday on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. “They are not able to pay their soldiers. This is a real economic blockade.”

With the U.S.-Israeli campaign of air strikes suspended, Bessent’s comments reflect the Trump administration’s efforts to squeeze the Islamic republic with measures including a naval blockade to cut off Iran’s oil exports, depriving Tehran of its main revenue source.

The U.S. believes Iran’s oil industry may need to start shutting in wells “in the next week” as the country’s crude storage is “rapidly filling up,” Bessent said.

“Their oil infrastructure is starting to creak,” he said. “It hasn’t been maintained again because of our decades-long sanctions against them.”

No ships are getting through the strait from the Iranian side “and we have upped the pressure on anyone trying to remit money into Iran to help the IRGC,” Bessent said, referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Tolls that Iran has been able to impose on vessels transiting the strait have been “a pittance” compared with the country’s previous oil revenues, he said.

A senior Iranian official said Iran has begun curbing production, reducing crude output to stay ahead of capacity limits rather than waiting for tanks to fill completely, Bloomberg previously reported.

President Donald Trump suggested on Saturday that Iran’s latest proposal wouldn’t be enough to unlock a deal, which the U.S. says must include an end to Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has consistently denied seeking a nuclear weapon.

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