Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that the Trump administration’s plan to intensify economic pressure on Iran could eliminate the need for a large-scale resumption of U.S. military operations against the country.

“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. 

Bessent’s comments came hours after President Donald Trump announced plans to impose major economic penalties on countries that provide “any type of lifeline” to Tehran as the administration seeks to further isolate Iran.

This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat,” Trump wrote Wednesday evening on Truth Social.

The announcement comes as the war with Iran approaches the six-month mark, with the United States yet to secure either a diplomatic resolution or a decisive military victory.

Bessent said the administration’s economic campaign would amount to “the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world.”

He said he plans to hold a press conference Monday to provide details of the administration’s strategy.

In previewing the plan, Bessent said the United States will give its allies a stark choice: “You are either with us or against us.”

“If you insist on doing business with [Iran], either transferring money, buying their oil or doing seaborne ship transfers, then the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. government … will put its full might and force toward enforcing against you,” Bessent said.

“It is time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision,” he added. “We are going to squash the economy of this murderous regime.”

Bessent said the economic pressure campaign would work alongside an ongoing U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Gulf of Oman.

“It is a one-two punch. We have the blockade, and we are going to have the toughest sanctions in history,” he said.

“We are going to collapse this regime,” Bessent added..