The United States and Iran exchanged defiant messages ahead of Monday's scheduled announcement of new US economic sanctions that could impact the Islamic Republic and Tehran's most important trading partners including China.As the war neared six months old, the two sides were not exchanging fire but also not pursuing peace talks. All the while, oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz have virtually halted as Tehran clings to its leverage by threatening to strike any unauthorized oil tankers that attempt to transit the narrow waterway.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will hold a press conference at 2 p.m. Eastern time on Monday amid promises to reveal "the toughest sanctions in history" on Iran while also urging China to cooperate with Washington. China buys more than 80 percent of Iran's shipped oil, according to 2025 data from analytics firm Kpler. Beijing urged diplomacy.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Saturday that the imminent US announcement of new economic sanctions on Iran was an "assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty over every independent member state of the United Nations."
"Such secondary sanctions find no foundation in international law," he said in a post on X.
