Bessent Says Treasury Push Aims to Cut Off Iran’s Regime Financially, Says Collapse ‘Could Happen’

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that the Trump administration is telling other countries the current Iranian government is finished, even though toppling it outright is not the stated objective of the campaign.

Speaking on Newsmax TV’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Bessent said Treasury, State Department and other U.S. teams have been working internationally to isolate Iran economically. “I can tell you that teams from Treasury, from State, from DOW, they have spread out across the world, and we are telling friends and foes that this is the end of the regime, we are going to sever all of their economic ties with the outside world,” he said.

He called it “the final move for this regime after 47 years.”

Host Rob Schmitt asked whether Bessent believed the Iranian government would collapse before the end of President Trump’s term. “I believe it will be much sooner,” Bessent said.

Bessent said that while regime collapse is not the administration’s formal goal, it remains a possibility. “The goal here isn’t necessarily to collapse the regime. It could happen. Maybe the people will rise up, 100% inflation, lines, the military not being paid, the central banker was in panic last week,” he said. He added that President Trump believes a prior memorandum of understanding failed because “the Iranians were not ready to make a deal,” and said the administration intends to change that calculus: “So, we are going to make sure that they want to make a deal.”

Schmitt pushed back, saying he doubted the regime would ever agree to a deal if it survives the current administration. Bessent responded that Trump is determined the government will not continue in its present form. “That’s why President Trump is determined that they will not survive in situ, as they are now,” he said. “So, Rob, we do not have a regime change, but we changed the regime, that we took out the first level, we took out the second level.”

Bessent described the remaining leadership as including “hardened military veterans,” but said his experience over the past two or three decades suggests self-preservation tends to win out. “In general, people like having their heads attached to their necks, and whether they turn on each other, whether the people turn on them, or whether something happens to them in a military action,” he said. He pointed to renewed “kinetic action” by Iran as evidence of the regime’s frustration.