Trump’s economic 'D-Day'

**Brian Lehrer** (0:05)
From WNYC, I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my Daily Politics Podcast. It's Monday, August 24th.
President Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Besant have declared today Economic D-Day. That's if Iran doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz and maybe do other things in the way the US wants. Besant is holding a news conference today to detail what that will allegedly mean for Iran and for any country doing business with Iran, US allies included. Here is Besant previewing it a little bit last week on CNBC.

**Scott Bessent** (0:42)
We do have control of the Strait. You would have seen media reports that large amounts of energy are getting out. And I think that we can continue doing that in the southern lane and that I think oil markets are misinterpreting what this economic pressure means. The economic pressure means that we are going to all of our allies, and this is going to be the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world. And we are going to them and saying, you are either with us or against us. You want this murderous regime to end. And if you insist on doing business with them, either transferring money, buying their oil, they are doing seaborne ship transfers, then the US. Treasury and the US government, they will put its full might and force toward enforcing against you.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:39)
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on CNBC.
With me now is Yeganeh Torbati, covering the war and the region from Istanbul for The New York Times, and co-author of Stolen Revolution Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran, just published in June. Yeganeh, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

**Yeganeh Torbati** (2:01)
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:04)
You heard the Scott Bessent clip. What else can you tell us so far about what they mean by Economic D-Day?

**Yeganeh Torbati** (2:11)
Well, I think we're all very curious to see what the US is going to announce. But it is interesting to me. I mean, one, from what he said, it seems that the goal is now, again, some sort of regime change. For a while, the US has been hoping to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened. But it seems like, again, we're looking at more expansive goals, at least according to what Secretary Bessent said in that clip.
I think the thing that I'll be looking out the most for is, what does this mean for China and will these measures be enforced against China?
President Donald Trump has tried to pursue a pretty good relationship with the Chinese government. But it is China that buys or bought, I guess, before the Naval Blockade, the vast majority of Iran's oil, even despite US sanctions. It was done through these underhanded ways, and it wasn't officially on the books. But that is what the reporting tells us, is that Chinese refineries had been buying that Iranian oil. And so is that going to be stopped by the US or is the US going to be trying to punish China for that? I'll be very curious to see kind of if President Trump sort of wants to make his relationship with the Chinese government more difficult over the Iran issue.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:32)
Yeah. But some of the listeners may think, okay, China, they're kind of an adversary anyway.
But you heard the clip. Sounds like Besant and Trump plan to inflict economic pain, not just on China, but also on US allies who get oil or do other business with Iran. Do you have a sense of who that might affect and who the US generally considers an ally if there's anyone left in that category?

**Yeganeh Torbati** (3:59)
I mean, Iran's trade relationships are fairly limited because of sanctions, but of course, it does buy food from other countries, up till I guess last week or a few days ago, it was doing significant trade with the United Arab Emirates. You might have seen that the UAE, which is of course a US ally, has announced that it is cutting off those relationships with Iran. I think that was likely in anticipation of this economic D-day.
So I think we have to see, does the US really mean that no trade can occur with Iran?
Does that mean humanitarian goods, food? The extent of this is still unknown, and I think we'll get a better sense both at the press conference, then also with the Treasury official announcements and text that comes out, we'll get a much better sense of if there are any exceptions to this. Because those exceptions could turn out to be quite broad and therefore allow some wiggle room even for US allies here.