US President Donald Trump has ordered a review of the sanctions policy, aiming to make the restrictions more damaging to countries like Iran and Russia, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced.
In an interview with Fox Business on Tuesday, he argued that the “lackadaisical” sanctions imposed by former President Joe Biden have failed to achieve any meaningful result, only hurting the US in the process.
“For a long time, we’d have what I always called lazy sanctions. They would just sit there. We think it threatens the dollar’s reserve currency status,” Bessent said.
“We come in, we hit them hard, we hit them fast, we hit them heavy. And that’s what we are doing with Iran. So we’re calling it Operation Maximum Pressure,” he added.
The US could amp up the sanctions against Russia if the negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict fail, Bessent warned. “We will be able to get [Moscow] to the table without increasing the sanctions, but all options are on the…
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