US set to sanction another bank as Trump administration ramps up pressure on Iran

The Trump administration plans to impose sanctions on another bank this week as it steps up efforts to economically isolate Iran, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told The Associated Press on Sunday.

“This is going to be financial violence if we have to,” Bessent said, warning financial institutions that Washington was prepared to target those continuing to support Iran.

“We are showing people that we know who you are, you know who you are, and this has got to stop,” he said.

Bessent spoke ahead of Group of 20 meetings in Asheville, North Carolina, where he is expected to hold bilateral discussions with finance officials from major and developing economies and seek international cooperation on pressure against Iran.

The administration has recently signalled a shift from military action towards economic pressure as the conflict with Iran reaches its six-month mark. Washington has described the campaign as an “economic D-Day” against Tehran, which has already faced decades of US sanctions.

However, tensions escalated again on Sunday when US forces struck Iranian rocket launchers near the Strait of Hormuz, marking Washington’s first military action against Iran in about a month. Tehran vowed retaliation for what it described as a deadly attack.

So far, the administration has largely relied on warnings rather than imposing new sanctions on Iran’s major trading partners. A key challenge is China, Iran’s largest trading partner and a leading buyer of Iranian oil.

Bessent said he would raise the issue with his Chinese counterparts at the G20 and warned that “all options are on the table” regarding possible sanctions on Beijing over its continued purchases of Iranian oil.

He rejected suggestions that Washington was reluctant to confront China, calling that perception “a completely false narrative that the media picked up on”.

Bessent said the US and China shared an interest in reopening the Strait of Hormuz and preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

The Treasury Department’s first formal action in the latest campaign of economic pressure came on Friday, when it proposed cutting the UAE branches of Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-largest bank, off from the US financial system.

By stopping short of directly sanctioning the Egyptian parent bank, the administration appeared to signal caution about penalising major trading partners that maintain commercial ties with Iran, including China and India.