But as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent demands the world play along with efforts to isolate Iran, the second-largest economy, China, is refusing to join the US sanctions campaign. The Trump administration has failed to use military means to force Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz after it began restricting travel in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks in late February.
On Thursday, Bessent told CNBC that the new approach is to impose the “toughest sanctions in history” on Iran, ramping up a strategy that has inflicted suffering on the Iranian people but failed to force its leaders out of power for nearly 50 years. Bessent emphasized that it would only work with the help of “all of our allies” carrying out the “greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world.”