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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent flew into the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in Asheville, North Carolina on Sunday night with one simple message: Cease financial dealings with Iran or else.

The U.S. Treasury Department is planning to unleash new secondary sanctions on institutions linked to Iran on a weekly basis, starting with the banks, according to Reuters. New sanctions will be announced every week and Bessent said that “You’re going to see a lot more of these every week. We’re starting with the banks, and we’re telling the banks it’s not OK to have Iranian money and to aid the regime.”

The Treasury action against Banque Misr’s UAE branches was announced by the US Treasury Department on Friday. Bessent hinted that the action to sever an entire institution from the US financial system — which would have the financial equivalent of a kill shot on it — is also on the cards.

The Treasury department has launched Operation Economic Outcast, a program unveiled last week in a bid to starve Iran of funds to support its military. Bessent said at the meeting that there can be “no leakage” of money to Iran, and that people need to decide whether to support the Iranian regime or stand with the United States.

As for the Chinese, Bessent seemed utterly non-plussed at analysts’ assertions that Treasury would fail at its task of exerting economic pressure on Iran without slamming Chinese companies with secondary sanctions. China’s imports of Iranian oil had fallen to near zero some time ago, largely as a result of the US Navy’s sealing off the ports of Iran. And the stockpile of crude being carried in Iranian tankers is also dwindling. “Problem solved,” he noted.

Bessent is meeting individually with all G20 counterparts in Asheville, urging them to sever all economic ties with Iran or face secondary sanction exposure. Bessent said this financial pressure will increase in the coming weeks and will run in parallel with military action.

The Asheville meetings come just hours after U.S. forces struck two IRGC rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz — the first U.S. military action in the region in roughly a month — followed within hours by Iranian ballistic missile attacks targeting American air bases in Jordan. The financial and military fronts of Operation Epic Fury are now moving in lockstep.

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