ERBIL () - US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Monday that Operation Economic Outcast has driven the Iranian rial to a record low, publishing an official Treasury graphic showing the currency at 2.44 million rials to the dollar with a trajectory pointing toward 3 million, and vowing that the campaign will continue to degrade the Iranian regime's ability to fund terrorism and develop a nuclear weapon.
"Operation Economic Outcast has caused the rial to hit record lows" Bessent said.
We will continue to degrade the Iranian regime's ability to fund terrorism and develop a nuclear weapon.
The official US Treasury graphic, published alongside Bessent's statement, shows a steeply rising red line representing the rial's collapse against the dollar, with the current level marked at 2.44 million Iranian rials per dollar and an upward dashed projection labeled "3 million here we come,"suggesting Treasury views further rial devaluation as both inevitable and desirable under the continued pressure of Operation Economic Outcast.
The collapse of the Iranian rial to 2.44 million to the dollar represents a historic low for the Islamic Republic's currency and a direct measure of the economic damage that Operation Economic Outcast's weekly sanctions campaign has inflicted since it was declared by Bessent on August 24, 2026. The campaign has sanctioned institutions across the UAE, Türkiye, Russia, Hong Kong, and China, grounded all Iranian airlines worldwide from September 23, targeted 85 percent of Iran's tankers, reduced Iranian oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz to zero, and cut Iran off from the US dollar clearing system.
Bessent's publication of the rial collapse graphic on the same day that a US official told and Axios journalist Barak Ravid that Trump is willing to give Iran sanctions relief and release frozen funds for concrete nuclear progress creates a deliberate dual message. The economic pain is real, documented, and accelerating toward 3 million rials to the dollar. The offer of relief is also real. The choice between continuing devaluation and accepting a nuclear deal is being placed before Tehran in the starkest possible terms simultaneously.
Treasury Secretary Bessent had previously described Iran's economy as in free-fall, its currency at a historic low, and the regime as panicked because the financial walls are closing in. Monday's graphic, showing the rial already at 2.44 million and pointing toward 3 million, updates that assessment with a specific number and a specific trajectory, turning a general description of economic pressure into a precise and public financial forecast.
