In an interview with CNBC, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant predicted that Iran's economy will shrink by more than 25% from March 2026 to March 2027, and said that Washington's economic pressure on the Islamic Republic will continue as part of Operation "Economic Exclusion". Referring to the decline in the value of the rial, Basant said that the American economic campaign aimed at isolating the economy of the Islamic Republic severely limited Tehran's access to foreign currency. He compared the state of the Iranian economy to the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and said that the rate of contraction of the Iranian economy may be even faster than at that time. The American Treasury Secretary also said that senior officials in the Islamic Republic and the Revolutionary Guards are concerned about the economic situation, and said that Tehran is facing increasing limitations in providing the funds needed to pay its forces and support proxies including the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah. In some of his speeches, Besant used harsh commentary to compare some IRGC commanders to "mice in a sewer pipe" that he said were in hiding places and cut off from the outside world.

In an interview with CNBC, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant predicted that Iran's economy will shrink by more than 25% from March 2026 to March 2027, and said that Washington's economic pressure on the Islamic Republic will continue as part of Operation "Economic Exclusion". Referring to the decline in the value of the rial, Basant said that the American economic campaign aimed at isolating the economy of the Islamic Republic severely limited Tehran's access to foreign currency. He compared the state of the Iranian economy to the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and said that the rate of contraction of the Iranian economy may be even faster than at that time. The American Treasury Secretary also said that senior officials in the Islamic Republic and the Revolutionary Guards are concerned about the economic situation, and said that Tehran is facing increasing limitations in providing the funds needed to pay its forces and support proxies including the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah. In some of his speeches, Besant used harsh commentary to compare some IRGC commanders to "mice in a sewer pipe" that he said were in hiding places and cut off from the outside world.