Trump: Iran ‘Ready to Fold Up’ — Bessent: Regime Loaded ‘ZERO’ Crude Oil in September

President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran is “ready to fold up” as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that Tehran loaded “ZERO” crude oil onto tankers in September, the latest sign of the administration’s campaign to cut off the regime’s most critical source of revenue.

“We have a war going on with a country that will never have a nuclear weapon and is ready to fold up,” Trump said during remarks in Denton, Texas. “We’ll win very easily right now.”

Bessent offered a stark measure of that economic deterioration Thursday, announcing that “Iran loaded ZERO crude oil onto tankers in September.”

“The Trump Administration is cutting off the Iranian regime’s most critical source of revenue,” Bessent said, adding that Operation Economic Outcast is “severing the economic lifelines that have allowed Tehran to finance its terrorist agenda.”

The September figure is particularly significant because Iran is also running through the crude it loaded before shipments were cut off. Bessent said Sunday that only about 15 million barrels remained on the water and predicted Tehran would make its final deliveries to China within roughly two weeks — leaving the regime without oil to trade for the revenue its battered economy increasingly needs.

After that, Bessent said, Iran will have “nothing left to trade for anything.”

“It is an empty set, and I believe they are feeling the pressure here and that’s why they want a deal,” he added.

The cutoff is the culmination of a months-long U.S. effort to turn Iran’s attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz against Tehran itself — restoring international commercial traffic through the waterway while maintaining a naval blockade against trade entering or leaving Iranian ports.

Trump distilled that approach over the weekend after rejecting Tehran’s latest proposal for reopening the Strait.

“They wanted to close the Strait,” Trump said. “And I said, that’s fine. We’re going to close it on you, but everybody else is able to use it.”

CENTCOM had already documented the widening disparity earlier this month, when commander Adm. Brad Cooper announced that U.S. forces had supported over 2,000 commercial transits carrying more than one billion barrels of Gulf crude through Hormuz while holding Iranian oil exports through the waterway at zero under what he called an “ironclad blockade.”

Trump highlighted that billion-barrel milestone at the United Nations last week as he called for Iran’s “complete economic isolation.” CENTCOM said Wednesday that U.S. forces had since redirected 125 commercial vessels to ensure strict compliance with the blockade.

Trump said Thursday that Washington is continuing to move Gulf oil through the waterway even as Iranian shipments remain blocked.

“Iran hasn’t had one ship get through. Not one ship in months,” Trump said, while saying the United States is moving “millions and millions of barrels of oil, in some cases more than before the war.”

The loss of oil revenue has coincided with a deepening currency crisis inside Iran. The rial, which traded at roughly 1.7 million to the dollar before the war, fell to about 2.44 million Monday before sliding past 2.5 million Tuesday.

Bessent pointed to the record low as another result of the administration’s campaign, saying Monday that “Operation Economic Outcast has caused the rial to hit record lows.”

Trump returned to the same measure Thursday as he argued that Tehran is nearing a breaking point.

“Their currency is valueless. They have no money,” he said.

The administration widened the effort Thursday, targeting what Treasury described as some of the “last significant elements of Iran’s failing industrial infrastructure,” including its automotive, rail, manufacturing, and metals sectors.

Treasury said dwindling oil revenues have left Tehran increasingly dependent on those industries for revenue and logistical capacity, making them the next focus of the administration’s effort to isolate the regime.

“The Iranian regime’s ability to fund its war machine and inflict terror on the world has been severely diminished thanks to Operation Economic Outcast,” Bessent said.

He said the latest sanctions would “lay the groundwork for the United States and our partners to drain the regime’s revenue once and for all.”

The expanding economic campaign has also become central to efforts to revive negotiations with Tehran following last week’s U.N. General Assembly. Iran has sought an end to the naval blockade and relief from oil sanctions as part of a broader proposal that would reopen Hormuz and restart nuclear negotiations.

Trump rejected Iran’s latest proposal, telling TIME in an interview published Thursday that it was “just not good enough. Nearly.”

He made clear that Iran’s weakened position had not made him more willing to accept terms he previously considered unacceptable: “Things that I wouldn’t have approved a year ago I wouldn’t have today.”

Bessent has said Washington intends to preserve that leverage not only to secure an agreement, but to ensure Tehran abides by one.

“My job is to make sure that, when they come with a deal, that they want to stick to it,” Bessent said Sunday.

“Next time, if there is a deal — and that’s at President Trump’s discretion — they will stick to it,” he added. “Because they are on their knees.”

Any agreement, however, would still have to bridge the fundamental dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Trump said Thursday that Tehran had been “three to four weeks away, maybe sooner” from obtaining a nuclear weapon before the war began.

“If they have a nuclear weapon, the whole game is over,” Trump said. “We can’t let them have.”

Tehran, meanwhile, has threatened to widen the economic consequences if its own oil remains blocked. Iranian parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Chairman Ebrahim Azizi declared this week that “in a region where we cannot sell oil, no one else will sell oil either,” adding that if Iran’s security is not guaranteed, “no infrastructure will remain safe.”

Trump made clear Thursday that Washington’s alternative to an acceptable agreement could be renewed military action.

“Now I have to make a decision,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They’ll either sign a very fair deal, or they won’t exist any longer.”

The warning comes as the United States positions additional forces for that possibility. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group departed for the Middle East this week, while the military has also sent additional Patriot batteries to protect critical energy facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the event major combat operations resume, Axios reported Thursday.

Trump later returned to that choice in Denton, casting the conflict as approaching a final decision point.

“When that ends, which will be very soon, one way or the other it’s going to end,” Trump said. “Either they’ll do something very proper and smart, or they won’t be around very long.”