Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States is ‘too often’ left alone in its determination to fight threats from Iran.
PARIS—U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent used this week’s G7 finance ministers’ meeting in Paris to press Washington’s allies to intensify the economic campaign against Iran. European finance ministers, meanwhile, urged him to help bring the U.S.- and Israeli-led war to an end, warning that its economic fallout was spreading across the continent.
The finance ministers of Germany, France, and Italy, joined by the European Commission, pressed Bessent during a closed-door session on the economic consequences of the conflict. The war with Iran, they said, was driving a surge in oil prices across the European Union, weighing on growth and raising the risk of a food crisis.
Benchmark crude has traded above $100 a barrel since the strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28, and the International Monetary Fund has warned that the disruption could slow global growth, raise inflation, and increase the risk of recession.
A Strategic Divide
French Finance Minister Roland Lescure, who chaired the meeting, told reporters, “It’s not only the Europeans who think that: We all think [the war] must end as soon as possible,” adding that reopening the Strait of Hormuz would help mitigate the economic fallout for everyone. A coordinated release of 400 million barrels from strategic reserves last month tempered prices only temporarily.
German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said the war, “which we are not responsible for,” was being felt at German gas stations, and called for a quick negotiated solution and for the Strait of Hormuz to remain open. Ahead of the meeting, he described the G7 as the appropriate forum for discussing an end to the conflict, adding that Europeans “rely on cooperation rather than confrontation.”
Meanwhile, Bessent repeatedly urged his counterparts to intensify the economic pressure campaign against the Iranian regime, including through additional sanctions.
On the sidelines of the ministerial, Bessent used a keynote address at the “No Money for Terror” conference in Paris to call on G7 partners to “stand with us in full measure” against Iran. The United States “too often … seem[s] to be alone in our resolve” against terrorism, especially from Iran, he said.
He urged European partners to designate Iran’s financiers, close its bank branches, and dismantle its proxies, and said the Treasury would review its sanctions list to remove outdated designations and focus on the most sophisticated financing schemes.
