Bessent Announces Iran Sanctions, Tehran Threatens Seizures

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has scheduled a press conference for Monday, August 24, at 7 p.m. Central European Time, at the Treasury Department building in Washington, where he is set to unveil a new package of sanctions against Iran. Tehran responded before the package was even officially presented: it published a list of several dozen tankers it is threatening to seize in the Strait of Hormuz and warned that it will treat any country that joins the sanctions as an enemy. For Serbia, this is not just a Middle East story. The Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint through which a fifth of the world’s daily crude oil supply passes, and the price of a barrel on global markets feeds directly into the price of fuel at Serbian pumps, since domestic refineries pay for imported crude at the international exchange price.

What Washington Is Preparing

The package rests on secondary sanctions. It does not target only Iranian firms, but also foreign states, banks and companies that buy Iranian oil, process Iranian financial transactions or transport Iranian cargo, building on the naval blockade the United States already has in place around Iran. Ahead of the announcement, Bessent said:

We are going to have the toughest sanctions in history, and I will tell you, this is going to work. It worked in Venezuela when we put the blockade in place. It’s working in Cuba right now, and it will work in Iran, and we’re going to bring down this regime.

In the written statement announcing the package, he added that the goal is to “cut off every economic lifeline sustaining the tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone,” and he billed the press conference as “the largest financial offensive ever launched against a single adversary.” China buys roughly 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports, so Beijing is expected to feel the heaviest pressure. Turkey and India are also named among the Iranian trading partners affected.

Markets reacted even before the conference itself. Brent crude was trading at around $91.50 a barrel on Monday morning, down about 2 percent from Friday, while U.S. WTI crude stood at around $86.20, down roughly 1.5 percent. Part of the drop is explained by the fact that on Friday evening about 40 tankers carrying around 16 million barrels passed through the southern channel of the strait, more than the 15 to 20 ships seen on previous nights, even though traffic still remains far below pre war levels.

Iran’s Response: A List of Ships and a Threat of Seizure

Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority, a new body Tehran set up to oversee passage through Hormuz, published a list on Sunday of what it calls non-compliant vessels. The Jerusalem Post puts the number of tankers on the list at 45, Newsweek at around 46. The list includes ships operated by ADNOC Logistics and Shipping of the United Arab Emirates, its subsidiary Navig8 Tankers, Saudi Arabia’s Bahri, Klaveness Ship Management, Stolt Tankers and South Korea’s Sinokor. Under the new rules, those ships must seek Iranian approval to pass and pay for a security service. Those that fail to comply face fines, detention and confiscation of cargo, and any vessel that transfers cargo with a non-compliant ship is added to the list as well. Owners can request removal from the list by submitting a justification to Iran’s maritime authorities.

Mohsen Rezai, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, now an advisor to supreme leader ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, said:

Any country that takes part in imposing economic restrictions against us will be considered an enemy.

Rezai added that Iran will also target alternative oil transport routes, not just the Strait of Hormuz itself.

Iran Also Moves to Charge Ships for Passage Through the Strait

Alongside the list of ships, the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Iran’s parliament announced on Sunday that it had approved a draft law that would charge foreign vessels for what it calls security, navigation, insurance and fueling services when passing through Hormuz. Committee spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi told Iranian state media that the fee would be charged in rials or another currency set by the Islamic Republic. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does not allow Iran to charge for passage through the strait, but it does allow charges for services actually rendered, and it is on that exception that Tehran is building its draft law. Security analyst Roger McMillan told the Jerusalem Post that the move mainly shows how much financial pressure Iran is under, since the rial has fallen to a record low on the unofficial market, even as Iran’s central bank continues to insist that the official exchange rate is considerably more favorable.

Why Does the Strait of Hormuz Matter So Much?

Before the war, an average of around 20 million barrels of oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz every day, and the Gulf accounts for roughly a fifth of the world’s daily supply of crude oil and liquefied gas. Since the war began, that traffic has fallen several times over compared with pre war levels, and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently said the average over the last seven days of the war was around eight million barrels a day, less than half the pre war volume. That is exactly why every new threat of seizure or passage fees immediately moves prices on the exchanges, even when it is only partially carried out.

Pakistan as Mediator

Pakistan’s chief of army staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir, arrived in Tehran with a delegation on Monday. Islamabad said the visit was part of an effort to promote regional peace and stability. According to three Pakistani sources, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Munir last week and asked Pakistan to use its influence to bring Iran back to the negotiating table. Pakistani mediators already played a key role in the June memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran, also known as the Islamabad Memorandum, which set a 60 day deadline for reaching a deal on a ceasefire and the nuclear program. That deadline passed last week without result, closing off the formal mechanism for ending the war. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian previously defended the agreement as the best possible path, saying:

There is no provision in this agreement that represents capitulation.

The Cost of the War, Six Months In

The war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran has been going on since February 2026, meaning it is now in its sixth month. The Iranian rial is at a record low, and inflation in Iran, according to official Iranian statistics, is close to 90 percent. In recent days the Pentagon has added another 60 wounded American soldiers to its list, bringing the total number of U.S. service members killed or wounded in the war with Iran to 775. Americans are not without consequences on their own market either: the average price of gasoline in the United States stood at $4.09 a gallon on Sunday.

Diplomatic channels for ending the war are not completely closed, however. Egypt’s foreign minister has spoken with his Iranian counterpart about launching new negotiations, and Pakistan is on the ground today. Whether Munir’s visit produces anything concrete, or whether the sanctions Bessent is set to announce this evening become a new reason to delay talks further, remains an open question for the days ahead.

We have reported before on the announcement of this sanctions package, back when Bessent had only signaled that he was preparing the measure. Monday marks the first time the package has been given both a date and a venue for its unveiling, while Tehran’s response, the list of ships and the threat of seizure, is an entirely new element of the story.