Tehran slams U.S. sanctions policy as ‘addiction’ after Bessent says Iran is being ‘suffocated’

Iran has hit back at Washington’s latest sanctions rhetoric, accusing the United States of becoming so reliant on economic pressure that sanctions have replaced diplomacy as its default foreign-policy tool.

In a sharply worded statement, Iran’s Foreign Ministry dismissed U.S. claims that sanctions are “suffocating” the Iranian economy.

“The US Secretary of the Treasury has boasted of “suffocating” Iran through economic sanctions. Beyond its sheer pathos, the claim is a stark testament to America’s compulsive addiction to sanctions. Whenever Washington proves itself incapable of pursuing diplomacy, it retreats into sanctions; and whenever those sanctions fail to produce results, it simply increases the dose. This is no longer 'policy'—it is 'habit'; and more dangerously still, it is an addiction that has displaced thought itself. Iran has demonstrated over decades that it will not be strangled by these exhausted refrains. The real risk is that American politicians, clinging to this bad habit, will instead strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on X.

On August 7, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview that the United States had succeeded in “suffocating” Iran. Bessent claimed that food inflation in Iran was running at “150–180%,” while the country was struggling to pay its military personnel.