Rezaei warns the Gulf: join the US squeeze and Hormuz stops
Bessent is due Monday with a new sanctions plan. Rezaei says Gulf help would stop oil leaving the strait.
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, warned Gulf states on Sunday not to join a new US economic squeeze on Tehran.
"If the countries surrounding Iran join the Americans in their economic war, not a drop of oil will leave the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz," he said, according to Tasnim. He added that Iran would also hit other oil export routes from the Gulf.
This is a new pressure campaign, not the old 60-day talks clock. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is due on Monday to set out a plan meant to isolate Iran and the countries that still trade with it. The White House wants sanctions, a naval blockade, and secondary pressure instead of more direct strikes, after months of US and Israeli attacks inside Iran.
China is the main buyer of Iranian oil. India, Turkey and the UAE are also in the frame. Analysts told Bloomberg the risk is a military reply, not a surrender. Nate Swanson of the Atlantic Council said that if the squeeze works, Iran will lash out because it will see no other option.
Rezaei also said Trump's attacks had made nuclear weapons look more useful, because IAEA membership and the NPT had not stopped US strikes. He said Iran had kept its safeguards and inspections. He tied new military appointments by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei to a decision to stay ready for war.
The war that began on 28 February has already hit Hormuz shipping and lifted oil prices. Iran has used drones and ballistic missiles against US bases and Gulf civilian infrastructure. Iran's central bank governor said this week that oil exports had "virtually stopped" under the US blockade. The rial is down almost 30 percent this year. Inflation is above 80 percent. The IMF, in April, forecast a 6.1 percent contraction.
India Today reported Trump claiming Hormuz as American territory as he raised the pressure. Tehran called any fresh threat a reason for a devastating response.
Washington is trying to change the weapon, not the target. Missiles become ledgers. Hormuz does not care about that distinction.
A fifth of the world's seaborne oil still has to pass that strait. If Gulf governments even look like they are helping a US blockade, Rezaei has now named the price in public: no oil out.
India sits in the middle. It buys energy. It also has to live with whatever Bessent announces on Monday. A campaign aimed at China will not stay in one bilateral column.
The 60-day deadline story is over. This is the next phase: an economic war with a military fuse still attached.
Bessent speaks on Monday. Watch the fine print on secondary sanctions, and whether Gulf capitals issue even a cautious joint line. Watch tanker traffic through Hormuz in the week after that speech. Rezaei has already written the Iranian reply.