US Treasury Scott Bessent Admits Creating Dollar Shortage to Spark Iran Protests

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent openly acknowledged during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on February 5 or 6, 2026, that the United States deliberately engineered a dollar shortage in Iran through its sanctions and economic pressure strategy, describing it as intentional “economic statecraft.”

He explained that this policy reached a dramatic peak in December 2025 when one of Iran’s largest banks collapsed amid a run, forcing the central bank to print money, which sent the Iranian rial into free fall, triggered explosive inflation, and ultimately drove ordinary Iranians into the streets in widespread protests against the regime’s economic mismanagement and hardship.

Bessent framed the unrest as a direct outcome of these measures, noting that Iranian leaders were frantically wiring funds abroad like “rats fleeing a sinking ship,” while the Trump administration continued to stand with the Iranian people amid ongoing sanctions targeting regime officials and networks.