And we begin this Sunday morning with breaking news on the war in Iran and President Trump's economic squeeze on the crippled country. As the brutal regime loses up to $400 million a day from lost oil sales as a result of the U.S.' ongoing blockade. The campaign, labeled Operation Economic Fury, has disrupted tens of billions in revenue targeting oil sales and cryptocurrency, according to the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who will join us in a moment. As the U.S.' military campaign pivots toward an economic choke campaign on Iran, the blockade is blocking up to two million barrels a day, forcing Iran to stockpile oil instead of selling it. But storage tanks are filling up. Here's what the President told me about the blockade.
Well, it's been pretty amazing actually. I thought that was going to happen. They reacted to this, I mean, we've obliterated them, and this almost seems to be more of a reaction than we had before. So we'll see. Look, it only matters the end result. We're doing very well. And we started off with Venezuela, we showed everybody how good... I rebuilt and built the military in my first term. I didn't know I was going to be using it this much. We have the greatest military in the world, not even a contest. Think of it, they have no navy, they have no air force. Everything's been wiped out. They have no anti-aircraft equipment. They have no radar. They have no leaders. The leaders they have now, it's a new regime, okay, and we find them pretty reasonable, to be honest with you. By comparison, pretty reasonable. It really is a new regime. And I think we're doing very well, but it only matters what the end result is. And maybe it'll happen fairly soon, who knows?
Now the U.S. is escalating the squeeze, targeting all financial lifelines to Iran including ships, banks, freezing $344 million in cryptocurrency. Iran's inflation on the cost of everyday items has effectively doubled while its currency has dramatically depreciated against the U.S. dollar, finishing with it taking 1.8 million rials to equal one dollar. Joining me now is the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent. Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for being here.
Maria, always good to be with you.
Can you give us an update on the economic choke that you have been putting in place in Iran? Are you still looking to apply secondary sanctions or sanctions on Iran or those doing business with Iran?
Yeah. And, Maria, just to remind you and your viewers, it began with the order last March from President Trump on maximum pressure. And three weeks ago the President gave the order to Treasury, myself, to begin 'Economic Fury.' The way to think about that, we were running a marathon over the past 12 months, and now we are sprinting towards the finish line. And I can tell you that we are suffocating the regime, and they are not able to pay their soldiers. This is a real economic blockade, and it is all parts of government, all hands on deck. It is the blockade that our great Navy is doing. No ships are getting through. And we have upped the pressure on anyone trying to remit money into Iran to help the IRGC. They are corrupt institutions. They've been stealing from the Iranian people for years. They have money offshore. We've tracked that down. We will continue to track that down. And we're going to preserve those assets for the Iranian people on the other side of this conflict.
And I guess it wasn't very smart of Iran to lash out at its Gulf friends. That combined with the pressure from OPEC has the United Arab Emirates leaving OPEC. What's the impact there?
Well, twofold, Maria. As you said, they really miscalculated when they started bombing their Gulf neighbors in a kinetic fashion. And in response, the Gulf neighbors, who I would describe as somewhat permissive in allowing Iranian IRGC money, Iranian regime money into their banking systems, have been very fulsome and come forward and given us the details and allowed us to freeze those assets. So the IRGC is watching their stolen assets for years, decades, for 47 years get frozen and go down the drain very quickly. The UAE has decided that OPEC is not for them. Most monopolies eventually collapse under their own weight. And, Maria, we can talk about it now or in a minute, but this gives me a lot of optimism that oil prices on the other side of this conflict are going to be much lower than they were going in, beginning of the year, or at any point in 2025.
Yeah. So in other words, more oil on the market is simple supply and demand. You're thinking that this is going to help the case on oil prices. You've got the UAE no longer needing to follow quotas from OPEC. They'll put more oil on the market, and that adds to the oil on the market. You think oil prices will be lower before the midterm elections?
I think oil prices, we can see in the futures market that oil prices are already lower three months, six months, nine months out. But, again, Maria, there are hundreds of oil tankers waiting in the Gulf to come out. The U.S. is only blockading Iranian ships, and, you know, we will see. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see more of those ships coming out. The Iranians, it reminds me, they're kind of like the Keystone Cops here. It reminds me of Baghdad Bob back during the Iraqi War. You had the guy kind of spouting nonsense while the tanks were driving around behind him. And the Iranians are like this. They're not tolling the Strait. We think that they've gotten less than $1.3 million in tolls, which is a pittance on their previous daily oil revenues. And their oil infrastructure is starting to creak. It hasn't been maintained, again, because of our decades-long sanctions against them. They are rapidly filling up storage. And as that happens, they're going to have to start shutting in wells, which we think could be in the next week.
Wow. Secretary, let me move on to the U.S. economy because these numbers are extraordinary when you look at what's going on with the backdrop in the U.S. You would think $100 oil would scare people and, in fact, stock market is up in the double digits, you've got the economy continuing to hum. Even Jay Powell, the outgoing Chairman of the Federal Reserve, had to admit it this week at his meeting. Here's what he said. Watch this, Secretary.
So it's actually quite resilient, I would say, because it's a positive thing if I could have that amendment. Yeah, you know, growth is really solid across our economy. Some of that is that consumer spending is hanging in pretty well, the most recent data are good. And some of it is just, apparently, insatiable demand for data centers all over the United States. So a lot of business investment going into building data centers and every reason to think that continues. So you've got an economy that's growing at 2% or better.
Secretary, assess the economy for us and to what do you attribute resilience?
