Ludovic Hood is a former U.S. diplomat and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled the Trump administration’s planned “economic D-Day” for Iran: a patient campaign to financially strangle the regime in Tehran. The plan calls for full-throttle enforcement of U.S. sanctions and discreet yet hard-nosed diplomatic engagement with Beijing and other actors who facilitate illicit trade and cash flows with Iran. “Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime,” Bessent declared.