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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressed confusion as to why crude oil prices rose on Thursday, hours after Donald Trump threatened yet another escalation against Iran nearly six months into the war that has thrown global oil markets into chaos.
Speaking to reporters, Bessent brought up the rise in oil prices as he discussed the muted effect of the Treasury Department’s surprise bond buyback announcement yesterday, saying that the department is “trying to bring the market back into equilibrium.”
“We’ve got a spike in oil prices today that I don’t really understand,” he said.
“Our announcement is for economic action, and I think that the economic action will mean that oil prices will come down sooner,” he said.
Bessent was referring to Trump’s threat, issued Thursday morning, of imposing an “ECONOMIC D-DAY” on Iran — yet another escalation that had no immediate effect on Iran’s obstruction of the Strait of Hormuz.
“I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
He pledged to take action against any country whose institutions “provide any type of lifeline to Iran,” without specifying what such action could look like. The U.S. already has a wide-ranging economic sanctions regime against Iran that has hardened in recent months, as Trump administration officials search for an exit route for the war.
Oil prices rose by 3 percent after Trump’s announcement, reaching a three-week high. Bessent told CNBC in separate comments that he thinks the rising prices are a response to a misinterpretation of Trump’s announcement.
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“I’m not sure why oil has popped up on this, because this — for now, for now, and it is at the president’s discretion — if we are doing the maximum economic pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart,” Bessent told CNBC. “But I would emphasize that is for now.”
The secretary further said that the U.S. is hoping to “collapse” the Iranian government, in what he called the “greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world.”
Oil prices rose a further 2 percent after Bessent’s own pledge to destroy Iran’s government.
The announcement came just three days after Trump threatened to “bomb the shit” out of Oman if the country “gets in the way” of negotiations to open the strait. Oman, a key strategic ally of the United States, is in talks with Iran about managing maritime traffic through the strait.
The administration’s economic threats, like his many similar prior sentiments, are unlikely to convince Iran to end the war or reopen traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Indeed, traffic through the strait remained low on Thursday, and Iranian officials dismissed the threats.
“The so-called ‘Economic D-Day’ is a diversion from America’s own crisis: unprecedented debt & surging interest costs,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. “Doubling down on failed policies will only bring further defeat — and enmity of Iranians. U.S. economic terrorism threatens global economy and sovereignty worldwide.”
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