Bessent Press Conference Reaction, Tracking Hormuz Tankers, Data Center Impact on REITs 8/24/26

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**Brian Sullivan** (0:50)
Treasury's warning shot to Iran. It's called Economic Outcast. Welcome to Power Lunch, everybody. I am Brian Sullivan. Alongside Contessa Brewer today, Kelly is off all this week. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiling a new round of economic sanctions on and against Iran.

**Contessa Brewer** (1:04)
And he threatened economic asphyxiation was his exact term. And then the markets just shrugged. Let's take a look at the Dow Jones right now. It's up 90 points, modestly higher. And you can see that the NASDAQ and the S&P are just slightly lower. Let's take a look at oil as well. Right now, $84.79 a barrel off by about 2.5% on the day. The Russell 2000 is in the red as well. And it yields on the 10-year Treasury down to 4.69%, Brian.

**Brian Sullivan** (1:36)
Yeah. And Semiconductor is selling off a bit today. Don't worry. We've got your whole markets covered. But we are going to begin this hour with the Treasury's big warning shot. Secretary Scott Bessent laying out the Trump administration's plan to try to squeeze Iran and any country that continues to do business and, as he put it, enables Iranian terror. Eamon Javers was in the press conference joining us now with more, had a little more time now to sort of dissect it. Think about it, Eamon. What are the big takeaways from today?

**Eamon Javers** (2:07)
Yeah, Brian, you said it. The name of this operation is Operation Economic Outcast. But the Treasury, importantly, stopping short of taking any significant action against American trading partners who are also trading with the country of Iran. The Treasury Secretary is saying that this is, in effect, putting those countries on notice. Here's what he said.

**Scott Bessent** (2:32)
We believe that a warning shot and a level set of expectations is appropriate. And if people do not want to meet our expectations, then we expect, and they should expect, that they will leave the dollar system.

**Eamon Javers** (2:49)
So what the Treasury said in the press release that they put out just before the press conference is that the US Departments of Treasury, State and War are engaging counterparts around the world to make it clear that the United States expects immediate action. But what the United States will do if that's not followed up on, not really clear here. They say every country will be given a defined timeline to shut down the Iran-related activity. We have identified if they fail to act, Treasury will act. But the Treasury Secretary was asked, for example, about actions he's prepared to take on China.
Without getting into what timeline he expects China to make adjustments in, he said he does expect the Chinese side to follow up on his warning here. All countries, he said, are subject to this. But without a lot of detail about what kind of action the United States might take, the Treasury Secretary also asked her, why is it that you're not taking immediate action now on this, on these secondary sanctions against Iran's trading partners? He had an interesting answer. He said, we're giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system? We believe that it's important to level set and give people a cure period, but they should know that we'll move very quickly and we are serious. So what the Treasury Secretary is saying here is that these kinds of secondary sanctions would blow up the global financial system. He doesn't want to have to do it, but ultimately he will do it if he's forced to. And so the question here is, what is this message coming out of Washington today? How is that being received in capitals around the world, particularly capitals like Beijing in particular, where leaders sent a message last night saying that they're concerned about this US action and they're worried about too much economic pressure on them. So some really open questions here, guys, I think, in terms of how this will be received and when it will happen, if it happens at all.