Bessent Says the Iran Measures Coming Next Week Have Never Been Seen Before

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday afternoon that the United States is preparing a set of economic measures against Iran unlike anything the world has seen before, and that they will be unveiled next week. He described the intent as economic isolation. The US is maintaining its blockade while this is announced, which is the item Tehran has made a precondition of any deal on the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent rose 1.63 percent to 88.49 dollars on the news. That is the fourth or fifth time this summer that the oil price has moved several percent on a statement about the strait rather than on a barrel actually going anywhere, and it has now moved in both directions on the same underlying situation within a single fortnight. Brent is up 4.16 percent on the month and 34.38 over the year.

The negotiations have stalled where they were always going to. Iran says it reached an accord with Oman on the 7th of August that bans American and Israeli vessels entirely, fines violations up to 20 percent of cargo value, and denies passage to anyone it holds responsible for damage to Iran until war reparations are paid. The whole thing is conditional on Washington ending the blockade. Bessent's announcement moves in the opposite direction.

Meanwhile the physical position has been quietly resolving itself. American figures have roughly 9 million barrels a day transiting Hormuz with military escort capacity expanding, against transit counts that were down about 90 percent year on year in July. The Navy is also working to relieve the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been on station through the campaign.

So there are two tracks and they are pulling apart. One is a convoy operation that is restoring flows without conceding anything, and it is working. The other is a negotiation over fees, authority and reparations that neither side can sign, and into which Washington has now added an unprecedented sanctions package.

Which suggests the deal is not really the objective anymore. If the barrels move under escort and the pressure campaign escalates at the same time, the strait reopens on American terms rather than negotiated ones. That is a coherent strategy and it may well work. It also removes whatever incentive Iran had to settle, and the thing being used as leverage on both sides is a waterway carrying about a fifth of the world's oil exports.