By Ayodele Quadri, Lagos Times Correspondent
TEHRAN / WASHINGTON — Senior Iranian officials have dismissed threat declarations from the Trump administration warning of an “Economic D-Day”, describing the planned enforcement as a sign of Washington’s political desperation after military pressure failed to force concessions.
The rhetoric escalated after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that Washington was entering the “endgame” against Tehran. Writing in an opinion piece for the Financial Times and posting on social media, Bessent vowed to unleash “the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary” aimed at severing all international trade, banking, and logistics lifelines connecting Iran to foreign markets.
Core Responses from Tehran
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Indication of U.S. Failure: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected the sanctions push, stating that Washington’s pivot back to trade restrictions disproves claims that Tehran’s economic and regional influence has been neutralized. “The fact that they have moved from military operations back to the same old plans shows that they are desperate,” Araghchi noted in a public broadcast.
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Rebuttal on U.S. Debt: Araghchi also pointed to internal domestic pressures facing Washington, calling the threat a distraction from the U.S. national public debt surpassing the $40 trillion mark.
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Strait of Hormuz Retaliation Warning: Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned that if the U.S. enforces a total financial blockade, Iran could move to stop all crude oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.
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Warning to U.S. Allies: Rezaei added that Tehran will treat any third-party nation that participates in or enforces Washington’s economic sanctions as committing an “act of war” against the Iranian people.
“They claim Iran is on the brink of collapse… yet they beg all their allies to help them! The military war didn’t yield results, so now they’ve named the next failure ‘economic war’.”
— Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister
