Category: Business Wires

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that his administration has entered a sweeping agreement with Venezuela that, if realized, could give the U.S. access to vast amounts of the South American country’s untapped oil reserves, at cost.

Trump in a social media post announcing the agreement said it was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez.

“The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!” Trump wrote.

Rodríguez’s government in a statement said the deal involves the development of 17 fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels. It said the agreement could draw $100 billion in investment into Venezuela’s oil industry and yield over $209 billion in taxes for Caracas.

Rodríguez in a posting on Telegram predicted the deal “will have a significant impact on our nation’s revival.”

The agreement allows for the United States to partner with an unnamed private operator in Venezuela to create a new private company to take hold of the reserves, according to a U.S. official familiar with the contours of the deal.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, added that Rodríguez granted the company 100-year rights to develop the oil fields.

The deal gives the United States 55% effective output of the new private company — including an ownership stake and rights to buy oil at cost. The company would be the second largest corporate holder of proven reserves after Saudi Aramco, according to the official.

Trump is under pressure to show he’s lowering oil costs

The announcement comes nearly nine months after the U.S. military at Trump’s direction carried out an operation to capture Venezuela’s then-President Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face federal narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges.

Trump faces mounting pressure to address high gas prices as the war in Iran on Friday reached a six-month milestone with no conclusion in sight. The U.S. has tapped its strategic petroleum reserves, which in early August fell below 300 million barrels, down by more than 100 million barrels since the start of 2026.

The U.S.-Israel war against Iran has led to a dramatic slowdown of Gulf oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz, which about 20% of the world petroleum passed through prior to the conflict.

The average price of gas in the U.S. stood at about $4.09 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA. The average price was $3.21 at the same time last year.

A significant drop in U.S. gas prices tied to the agreement should not be expected immediately. Experts have repeatedly warned that a substantial boost in Venezuelan oil production will not happen quickly as repairing and expanding infrastructure takes years and requires billions of dollars.

Persuading big American oil companies to return the region could face headwinds given the political uncertainty and decades of badly damaged infrastructure.

Days after the ouster of Maduro, Trump gathered oil executives at the White House and called on them to rush back into Venezuela. Executives expressed interest in the opportunity but there was also a measure of caution given their past experience in the country.

Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company, said at that moment he saw the country as “uninvestable.”

But Trump has insisted that his administration has brought a measure of stability to Venezuela.

He has argued that Venezuela stole U.S. oil when former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez moved decades ago to nationalize hundreds of foreign-owned assets, including those owned by American oil companies.

Rodríguez, in one of her early moves after taking power, signed a law that opens the nation’s oil sector to privatization and reversed a bedrock tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.

Rubio said on X that the agreement would usher in billions in private investment into Venezuela and lead to lower gas prices in the United States.

“This deal is a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people,” Rubio posted.

The oil bought from the new company would go toward filling the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve and toward military use, according to the U.S. official.

Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world, with an estimated 303 billion barrels of crude oil in the ground. That’s about 17% of the world’s supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Unlike other parts of the world, where geologists have to search for untapped oil, the reserves under Venezuela’s soil are largely mapped and known, experts say. But because of dilapidated infrastructure, the country only produces about 1% of the world’s oil.

Maduro remains jailed in the U.S. He has pleaded not guilty.

Israeli airstrikes killed five people in Gaza and three in the West Bank on Friday, despite a fragile ceasefire brokered by the United States.

Meanwhile, thousands of sailors remain stranded in the Persian Gulf by the Iran war, while Iran is touting an energy deal with Russia and the U.S. has imposed restrictions on a major Egyptian bank for its ties with Iran.

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 5

Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed five people, local hospital officials said Friday.

Two brothers and another relative died in a strike on the family’s home outside Khan Younis, officials at Nasser Hospital said. Two separate Israeli strikes killed one person each in Gaza City, according to health officials at Shifa hospital.

Israel’s military confirmed the Gaza strikes but said it was not aware of the one in Khan Younis.

The five deaths are among more than 1,300 Palestinians killed in airstrikes since an October ceasefire deal, Gaza health officials say.

Attack kills 3 in Jenin

Israel’s military said it killed three Palestinians in an airstrike in the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday, describing one of the dead as a Hamas operative and the two others as accomplices.

The military identified one of the targets as Qais Bitawi who was alleged to be “involved in advancing significant terrorist activity.” The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed Bitawi had been killed, along with two others. Hamas condemned the strike as a “heinous crime.”

Violence has escalated in the West Bank, where at least 87 Palestinians have been killed in attacks while three Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in 2026.

Iranian leader bans actions undermining national unity

Iran’s leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, on Friday declared that actions undermining national unity in the political, security, cultural, social, or economic spheres are prohibited.

He warned that even measures with some support could ultimately be harmful if their broader social consequences are ignored.

“Any statement that creates despair or weakens national and public motivation,” as well as what Khamenei called false divisions such as “war or negotiations,” “consensus or radicalism,” and “compromise or warmongering,” could damage the country.

U.S. diplomats return to Mideast embassies

American diplomats and some of their family members are beginning to return to U.S. embassies in the Middle East after many were ordered to leave their posts during the early days of the war with Iran.

On Friday, the embassies in Doha, Qatar; Kuwait City, Kuwait; and Manama, Bahrain, announced they would allow some family members of diplomats to return.

Similar measures were implemented earlier this week to all family members of U.S. government employees in Israel as well as those who are over 21 to Beirut, Lebanon.

Iran’s president says negotiations between Iran and U.S. needed

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Friday that neither Tehran nor Washington can achieve all of its demands and that negotiations are needed to bring stability and calm, state television reported.

Pezeshkian said Iran would remain committed to the Islamabad memorandum if the United States upheld its own commitments under the agreement, adding that negotiations could then continue toward a broader resolution.

He also criticized hard-liners inside Iran who oppose an agreement, favor continuing the war and argue that sanctions have had little effect on the country.

Thousands of sailors stranded by Iran war

The U.N.’s maritime agency said Friday that 19 seafarers have been killed and at least 6,000 remain stranded on hundreds of ships unable to leave the region since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28.

There have been at least 70 attacks on international shipping in the Persian Gulf, according to the International Maritime Organization.

About 20% of the world’s traded oil and natural gas passed through the vital commercial waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf before the war.

Iran and Russia look to revive energy deal

Iran’s ambassador to Russia on Friday said the two countries are seeking to deepen links between their energy grids by reviving a plan that dates to 2022, according to Iranian state media.

Umud Shokri, a fellow at George Mason University, said the plan calls for piping 55 billion cubic meters of Russian gas annually into Iran, via Azerbaijan.

He said that would help Iran weather U.S. economic pressure by alleviating seasonal shortages of gas, though there are significant hurdles, as building out the infrastructure would be expensive and time-consuming.

U.S. imposes restrictions on Egyptian bank

The Trump administration is taking steps to limit an Egyptian bank’s operations in the United Arab Emirates.

Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-largest bank, is accused of serving as an economic lifeline to Iran’s leadership. But under a new rule proposed by the U.S. Treasury, the bank’s Emirati branches would be severed from access to the U.S. financial system.

The Central Bank of Egypt said the restrictions are limited to Banque Misr’s branches in the UAE and relate to dollar transfers only. No other Egyptian bank is affected.

Iran objects to U.S. economic pressure

Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Friday condemned a new round of U.S. economic measures against the country, calling them “economic terrorism” and saying Tehran would use all available means to counter them.

The ministry said the sanctions violated international law and called on other countries to refrain from implementing them.

Earlier this week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent vowed to fully sever Iran from the global economy and threatened countries that continue to do business with Iran with secondary sanctions.

Finland to stop providing U.N. agency aid for Palestine

Finland said it will not extend an agreement to provide humanitarian aid with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry, which has accused the U.N. agency of being a “hotbed of terrorism,” welcomed the news. UNRWA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Finland provided UNRWA with 5 million euros ($5.8 million) annually under a multiyear deal set to expire later this year. The country said aid to Palestinian territories would instead be provided through other channels, such as the U.N.’s World Food Programme.

U.S. revokes visa of former Iraqi finance minister

The Trump administration has revoked the U.S. visa of a former Iraqi finance minister who was honored in 2022 with an International Women of Courage award by the State Department.

The department said Friday it had revoked the visa of Taif Sami Mohammed Al Shakarchi, who served as Iraq’s finance minister from 2022 until July and earlier this month when she was implicated by Iraqi authorities in a possible corruption scheme.

The department said her visa was revoked after the FBI added her to its “terrorism watchlist.” It was not clear why she had been added to the watchlist but officials said she had left the United States before her visa was revoked.

BEIRUT — Iran’s economy, already strained by high inflation, years of Western sanctions, and a war that has sharply reduced oil revenue, is poised for more instability as the Trump administration tries to coerce other countries into ending all financial dealings with the Islamic Republic.

A decision by the United Arab Emirates to suspend trade relations with Iran last week kick-started the White House’s latest attempt to isolate Tehran into submission. Iran entered the war with its foreign commerce concentrated among a relatively small group of countries, leaving it with fewer places to turn now.

The success of the U.S. strategy will largely hinge on China, the main buyer of Iranian oil and its top trading partner. Russia, a fellow target of sweeping U.S.-led sanctions, has a military conflict and economic crisis of its own and probably can’t offer longtime ally Iran much hard financial support.

Regional partners like Turkey, Pakistan, and Iraq maintain important relationships with both Iran and the U.S., giving them reason to avoid exposure to the secondary sanctions that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said awaited nations that did not cut economic ties with Iran.

“Those who stand with the United States will reap the rewards of our partnership,” Bessent said Monday while outlining the plan he called “Operation Economic Outcast.” “Those who tether themselves to the Iranian regime should expect to share in the isolation.”

The Emirates will be hard for Iran to replace as a conduit for foreign goods and payments

Despite Western sanctions, Iran in 2024 exchanged $125 billion worth of goods globally, according to Trade Data Monitor, a private firm. Iran is not a member of the World Trade Organization.

The bulk of its declared international trade, though, was with a handful of partners. The UAE, China, and Turkey supplied nearly three-quarters of Iran’s merchandise imports. Four countries — China, Iraq, the UAE, and Turkey — accounted for more than two-thirds of its non-oil exports.

On the supply side, the UAE held outsized importance. It was Iran’s biggest source of imported items and a gateway to financial channels that helped Iranian businesses make and receive international payments. Both roles kept Iran connected to the global economy.

As a re-export hub, the UAE processed shipments from foreign suppliers reluctant to deal directly with Iranian customers.

“From Iran’s perspective, the UAE can be replaced, but the Iranians are openly saying it’s not going to happen overnight,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

China has deep economic ties to Iran but depends less on the relationship

Beijing has economic interests in the Persian Gulf beyond Iran, and so far has avoided getting drawn into the conflict the U.S. and Israel initiated. China buys the overwhelming majority of Iran’s crude through opaque trading networks that bypass sanctions.

Its manufacturing clout and stranglehold on critical mineral supplies nonetheless give Beijing more room than Iran’s other partners to resist U.S. pressure, said David Lubin, a senior research fellow at Chatham House. Aggressive action against major Chinese banks and businesses could revive trade tensions as Chinese leader Xi Jinping prepares to meet with President Donald Trump in Washington next month.

“I don’t see China playing ball by any means,” Lubin said.

China is both Iran’s largest reported export market and a supplier of essential parts and products, according to WTO and U.N. data.

During the Obama administration, Beijing did agree to reduce energy imports from Iran, said Atlantic Council fellow Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland.

“We will want the Chinese to go a lot farther than they have gone in the past,” Fried said. “But it’s a lot harder now.”

China has experience helping an ally survive sanctions: it has long been North Korea’s economic lifeline and main diplomatic backer. Experts say China has avoided fully enforcing U.N. sanctions on North Korea and sent clandestine aid to help its impoverished neighbor stay afloat.

Expanding bilateral trade would create problems for Iran’s neighbors

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who has been his country’s lead negotiator over the past six months, was in Iraq the day of the UAE’s trade suspension. A purpose of his visit, he said, was “speeding up efforts to expand joint cooperation among all countries in the region, without foreign interference.”

The U.S. dollar’s preeminence in international trade and finance, however, means none of Iran’s trading partners would antagonize Washington lightly, Vatanka said. “We’re still at a point where if the U.S. wants to hurt you, it will matter,” he said.

Underscoring potential consequences, Turkey settled a yearslong U.S. dispute in July over the role of a state-owned bank in helping Iran evade sanctions through an oil-for-gold scheme. Trump also moved to lift sanctions on its fellow NATO member stemming from Turkey’s purchase of a sophisticated Russian missile system.

“I really don’t think Turkey would like to become the next country helping Iran to evade sanctions right now,” said Riccardo Gasco, an analyst at the IstanPol think tank in Istanbul.

Iran is a vital import source for Iraq and retains influence there through allied political factions and armed groups. Baghdad has sought closer economic and security ties with Washington. Since it invaded Iraq in 2003, the U.S. has significant control over the nation’s foreign currency reserves because they are housed in the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.

Oman, a frequent intermediary between Washington and Tehran, has found its balancing act suddenly precarious. Trump threatened Oman last week over its ongoing negotiations with Iran on the future management of the Strait of Hormuz.

One easy route for goods slipping past sanctions on Iran would be ports like Gwadar near the Persian Gulf in Pakistan, said Peter Harrell, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University.

“Ship an intermodal container of drone parts to one of the ports in western Pakistan and unload it onto a truck and have it driven across the border into Iran,” he said.

While Pakistan, a key ally and economic partner of China in the region, wants to increase trade with Iran, it faces competing pressures. It is serving as a key mediator between Tehran and Washington and has deep security ties with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s longtime regional rival.

Caspian Sea trade route alternatives unlikely to grow quickly

With the Strait of Hormuz mostly blocked and Russia’s war with Ukraine endangering ships on the Black Sea, Iran has sought to develop a “road of life” on the Caspian Sea, said Nikita Smagin, an independent analyst and a former Russian state news agency correspondent in Tehran.

Russia reportedly sent drones to Iran this year, repaying Tehran’s favor after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It also rerouted exports to Iran via Caspian Sea ports like Astrakhan. Agricultural products make up 80% of Russia and Iran’s reported trade.

“Both economies are exporting natural resources and have little to offer each other,” Smagin said.

The other countries that border the Caspian — Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan — probably won’t rush to join in, said Umud Shokri, a fellow at George Mason University.

Yet Russia and Iran are already in an “axis of the sanctioned,” said Mark Galeotti, executive director of the Mayak Intelligence firm. For decades the pair have collaborated to thwart trade restrictions, and increasing bilateral trade in both “strategic goods” and contraband like military technology, microchips and Gucci handbags could be a next step.

“Pomegranates and tomatoes only go so far,” he said.

TORONTO — Canada will announce retaliatory tariffs against the United States on Tuesday after relations deteriorated sharply Monday, with President Donald Trump telling Canadian leaders to “fall in line” or face consequences “far WORSE” than existing tariffs and Prime Minister Mark Carney accusing Washington of trying to subordinate Canada.

Trump also threatened new 50% tariffs on Canadian vehicles, auto parts and steel, while Carney said U.S. trade demands showed Washington wanted to “destroy our major industries,” including autos, steel and aluminum.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and three other Cabinet ministers are also expected Tuesday morning to share details of supports for workers affected by tariffs. Carney said earlier Monday that Canada may need to move away from matching U.S. tariffs dollar for dollar and instead use more targeted retaliation aimed at protecting Canadian workers and businesses.

“An attitude at the negotiation table that Canada is a subsidiary of the United States” is “not something we’re going to accept,” Carney said.

Carney was even more blunt in French.

“We learned during the negotiations that the Americans want to destroy our major industries, including autos, steel and aluminum,” Carney said. “That was one of the main reasons we said no. It was a bad deal.”

The fiery words from both sides show how U.S.-Canada relations have deteriorated since Carney walked away from trade negotiations with the Trump administration late Friday, triggering the president’s threatened 50% tariffs the next day on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods.

Canada and the United States share one of the world’s largest trading relationships, with deeply integrated supply chains across autos, energy, agriculture and manufacturing, making a prolonged trade fight potentially costly for businesses and workers on both sides of the border.

Carney cast doubt on the U.S.’s dependability, saying Canada was finding reliable partners “everywhere in the world, except in the United States. Except in the United States. And Russia.”

Trump unleashes personal attacks on Canadian leaders

On Monday, Trump came back with further tariffs, warning that he would impose them on Canada’s auto industry beginning next year.

“Canada has been ripping off the United States of America for years,” Trump wrote on social media, criticizing what he called the country’s “ridiculously high tariffs” on American farmers.

Carney said Washington’s auto-sector proposals would gradually have the effect of dismantling Canadian production.

“This is the most successful automotive partnership in history,” Carney said, referring to the deeply integrated Canada-U.S. industry.

Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Doug Ford unleashed his own tirade. In an interview with The Associated Press, he said Trump had underestimated Canadians’ willingness to endure economic pain rather than give in to U.S. pressure.

“We’re all in,” Ford said. “Up here, we’re at a fever pitch; everyone’s in for an economic war. They know they’re going to have to sacrifice.”

Trump responded in a social media post by attacking Ford personally, calling him “the less charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive brother of the late, great, Rob Ford,” and once again referring to Canada’s prime minister as “Governor Carney.”

Ford dismissed the insults: “If you think an insult from him hurts me? Well, bring it on, buddy, I’m ready.”

Ford is a Progressive Conservative whose party differs from that of Carney, a Liberal, but the two underscore broad political unity in Canada over the trade fight with Trump.

Ford threatens critical minerals and electricity

Ford said “everything is on the table” if the dispute worsens, including cutting off electricity and critical minerals from Ontario.

Critical minerals are increasingly important to U.S. national security and manufacturing. The Pentagon has sought more secure supplies of minerals used in military aircraft, missiles, munitions and electronics as Washington tries to reduce reliance on China, which dominates the mining or processing of several strategically important minerals.

Ford said Canada should also consider increasingly severe retaliation if Trump continues targeting Canadian industries, including oil and potash, while Ontario could raise electricity prices or stop sending power south.

“We power 1.5 million homes and businesses,” Ford said. “Everything’s on the table. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Ford has used electricity as leverage before. During an earlier phase of the dispute, Ontario imposed a 25% surcharge on electricity exported to Michigan, Minnesota and New York. Trump responded by threatening to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum before both sides backed away.

Auto industry becomes a central battleground

Ford accused Trump of not simply seeking a better trade deal but aiming to hollow out Canadian industries and move production south.

Ford said Trump wants to make Canada a vassal state.

“He wants to bleed out every single sector and bring them down to the U.S.,” Ford said.

The auto sector is especially important to Ontario, the center of Canada’s vehicle manufacturing industry. Plants and suppliers in Ontario are tightly integrated with factories in Michigan and other U.S. states, with parts routinely crossing the border multiple times during production.

Automakers including Ford, General Motors and Stellantis operate major assembly plants in Ontario, and the wider supply chain supports tens of thousands of jobs. Trump’s new threat of a 50% tariff on Canadian vehicles and parts puts that sector directly at the center of the escalating dispute.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Monday that “the only reason Canada has auto production in the first place” was because of the 1960s Auto Pact, under which Canada used access to its market to encourage vehicle production north of the border.

Ford says he opposed preliminary deal

Ford also disclosed that he had opposed the preliminary agreement Carney was considering before Canada walked away from negotiations, and that he was unwilling to restore American liquor to Ontario store shelves as part of an agreement.

“I wasn’t going to put the booze back on the shelves,” Ford said. “I was ready to go out there and call a press conference … and say I’m not buckling over.”

Ford said he understood Washington had sought language late in the negotiations that would have restricted Canada’s ability to negotiate trade agreements with other countries without U.S. approval. Carney has called that demand unacceptable and a question of Canadian sovereignty.

Carney said the dispute also exposed a deeper divide over language and culture, saying protections for French and Canadian culture that Washington views as trade irritants are considered fundamental rights in Canada.

“Who does he think he is?” Ford said of Trump. “You gotta be kidding.”

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new round of sanctions aimed at Iran on Monday and warned every country that does business with the Islamic Republic to sever those financial ties or face retaliation from the United States.

President Donald Trump’s pledge last week to unleash an “economic D-Day” against Tehran turned out to be new warnings to cut off Iran from the rest of the global economy. Asked why the U.S. was not imposing secondary sanctions on Iran’s trading partners, Bessent told reporters he wanted countries to have an opportunity to shift away from Iran before it was too late.

“Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Bessent said.

The Trump administration is struggling to find an off-ramp nearly six months into an unpopular war with an increasingly obstinate Iran. Washington had promised new sanctions would put even more pressure on an Iranian economy already battered by previous penalties and a U.S. naval blockade.

But the announcement Monday provided little detail and did not name which countries could face secondary sanctions. China, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates are Iran’s largest trade partners.

“We are level-setting with every country to tell them our expectations. We know who they are. They know who they are,” Bessent said. “So when the hammer of U.S. Treasury actions falls upon them, they will have no one to blame but themselves.”

Dubbing the campaign “Operation Economic Outcast,” Bessent said Trump has been “making phone calls to world leaders with specific requests to cease their interactions” with Iran and has already seen results.

The UAE announced last week that it was suspending all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran until further notice after a reported missile attack on the Gulf country. Bessent said the UAE decision was “not a coincidence.”

Shortly before the announcement, Iranian parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said the U.S. is not in an economic position to further restrict Tehran’s relations with other countries.

“Iran’s trading partners, both in the media and through messages sent to us, have made it clear that they don’t take these statements into account anywhere,” Qalibaf, who has been Iran’s lead negotiator over the past six months, posted on X.

Bessent is pressed on what new campaign means for China

Asked whether the U.S. would target China, Bessent said, “No one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions,” despite the fragile trade truce in place between the world’s two largest economies.

“If they facilitate transactions and are part of the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money, into repression, they will be targeted,” he added.

Experts say the U.S. is likely to carefully calibrate its actions on China, just a month before Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to visit the U.S.

How much the announcement matters “depends on the aggressiveness with which President Trump is willing to enforce it,” said Ali Wyne, senior research and advocacy adviser for U.S.-China relations at the International Crisis Group. “Thus far, despite threatening severe economic consequences for countries that do business with Iran, he has largely given China a pass.”

The Treasury Department said Monday that it was imposing sanctions on nearly 60 Iran-linked entities, accusing them of roles in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, cyber activities, and oil shipments.

That includes Hong Kong-based Sweet Ocean Industrial Limited and associated people and businesses, which were accused of helping Iran acquire sensitive goods such as laser optics equipment. Also penalized was China-based Shenzhen Huamei, which is a service provider for the Iran-based logistics company BRE Line, as well as BRE Line’s branch in Hong Kong, for allegedly supporting the missile and nuclear programs.

Iranian currency falls to a record low

Hours before Bessent’s announcement, Iran’s currency hit a record low.

The rial dropped to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar as trading opened on currency markets. Iran’s official Central Bank rate stood at around 1.5 million rials to the dollar, but the market rate is what most Iranians pay.

The currency had already been under pressure before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, as Iran faced double-digit inflation and negative growth. The rial has repeatedly hit new lows as nearly six months of war have taken an even greater toll.

Iranians find daily staples increasingly unaffordable. Since the war began, rice is up some 60% and beef prices are more than 150% higher. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that gross domestic product will contract more than 5%.

Still, economic pressure has not yet translated into political pressure. Iran retains a key strategic advantage: Its attacks and threats on ships in the Strait of Hormuz have brought traffic in the vital waterway to a near halt, damaging the world economy and heaping pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of congressional elections.

The war, as a result, has devolved into a fight over who controls the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil transited before the conflict. Iran is now refusing to fully reopen it unless it can charge ships.

Iran and Oman, which is on the opposite side of the strait, are reportedly in the final stages of agreeing on a plan for joint management of the waterway. Oman’s foreign minister is set to visit Iran on Tuesday.

Pakistani delegation visits Iran

Pakistan, which played a key role in brokering a 60-day ceasefire in June, sent a high-level delegation to Iran on Monday to encourage the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations, two senior officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The military confirmed only Field Marshal Asim Munir’s visit, saying it was aimed at de-escalating tensions in the region.

Trump spoke with Munir ahead of the army chief’s visit to Iran, according to a person familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm a private conversation. Reuters, citing Pakistani sources, first reported the call.

Munir met Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni in Tehran, according to the two senior officials. Munir was accompanied by Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and other officials. Munir was expected to remain in Iran overnight and meet the Iranian president and other senior officials before returning to Pakistan.

His previous visit to Tehran in May helped pave the way for a memorandum of understanding signed by the U.S. and Iran in June.

In downtown Tehran, 73-year-old Sadegh Mahmoudi did not hold out hope for a resolution. He joined a line of about a dozen people to purchase U.S. dollars with his remaining savings to hedge against further declines.

“There is no hope for a deal and peace,” he said.