Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says every Iranian airline will be shut out of international operations by Wednesday, using the dollar financial system itself as the enforcement mechanism.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week that the United States would move to "shut down" all Iranian airlines internationally by Wednesday, warning that any foreign company that fuels an Iranian aircraft, provides landing services, or sells a ticket on one risks being cut off from the dollar-based financial system entirely. "You will be knocked out of the dollar system," Bessent said, describing the threat as directed at foreign firms rather than at Iran's government directly.
The airline threat follows a separate round of sanctions the Treasury applied to financial institutions in Egypt, Turkey and Russia, which Bessent's department accuses of facilitating transactions tied to Iran. Bessent framed the combined actions as part of a campaign to isolate what he called Iran's financial "enablers" around the world, telling reporters Washington was pressuring Tehran "like never before."
The escalation lands the same week Iran is separately signaling openness to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a juxtaposition that has left oil markets processing two opposite signals from the same conflict at once: a diplomatic overture from Tehran and a hardening enforcement threat from Washington. Separately, the Group of Seven nations issued a joint statement condemning continued attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Yemen and Saudi Arabia, calling on the group to halt strikes on civilian shipping and on Iran to end its support for the rebels. Britain has said it will provide several weeks of air-to-air refueling support to Saudi jets defending against Houthi attacks.
No Iranian carrier has actually ceased international operations, and the Treasury has not named the specific institutions it sanctioned in Egypt, Turkey or Russia. What is clear is that Washington's approach this week has been to escalate financial pressure at the same moment Tehran is testing a diplomatic opening, leaving markets to guess which signal the administration actually intends to prevail.