{"id":275937,"date":"2026-09-03T02:00:35","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/275937\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T02:00:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:00:35","slug":"bessent-ends-g20-asheville-meeting-with-iran-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/275937\/","title":{"rendered":"Bessent ends G20 Asheville meeting with Iran message"},"content":{"rendered":"

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent used the G20 finance ministers meeting in Asheville to press allies on the economic campaign against Iran<\/a>, saying the United States and China have more in common than differences when it comes to preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and keeping the Strait of Hormuz open.<\/p>\n

Bessent made the comments to reporters, including Carolina Journal, during a Sept. 1 press conference on the outdoor terrace of the Omni Grove Park Inn following the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting.<\/p>\n

The meeting came as tensions between the United States and Iran escalated, with the US announcing new military strikes against Iranian targets and Iran responding with attacks on US interests in the region.<\/p>\n

Bessent said the United States has held what he described as quiet conversations with both China and Russia about Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Iran, we have more in common than we have differences,\u201d Bessent said.<\/p>\n

He said China agrees that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon and that commercial navigation through the Strait of Hormuz must remain open.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe it\u2019s incumbent upon China to work toward a solution,\u201d Bessent said.<\/p>\n

The Strait of Hormuz is a major international shipping route for oil and other energy products. Disruptions there can affect energy prices and the broader global economy.<\/p>\n

Bessent said China has a particular economic interest in keeping the waterway open because, he said, about half of China\u2019s energy supply comes from the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n

Financial pressure on Iran<\/p>\n

Bessent also outlined the Treasury Department\u2019s efforts to increase economic pressure on Iran.<\/p>\n

He said the administration is targeting Iranian financial institutions and entities connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and expects additional sanctions to be announced.<\/p>\n

Bessent said the broader objective is to restrict Iran\u2019s access to the international financial system and put pressure on the government to reach an agreement with President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

He described the Iranian economy as being in a \u201cdeath spiral\u201d and cited what he said was a sharp decline in the value of Iran\u2019s currency.<\/p>\n

Bessent also said Iran has millions of barrels of crude oil at sea and that sanctions are complicating its ability to receive and convert payments.<\/p>\n

The Treasury secretary said the United States has received support from other countries for efforts to target Iranian entities and financial networks.<\/p>\n

He said allies had offered intelligence and economic intelligence related to the campaign against Tehran.<\/p>\n

Bessent said keeping the Strait of Hormuz open is an issue on which the United States and China share an interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t say that there was a specific agreement,\u201d Bessent said when asked whether the two countries had reached an agreement on the strait. \u201cI said we agreed that the strait must be open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bessent also described US military actions<\/a> against Iranian radar and other capabilities, saying the United States had helped enable the movement of oil through the waterway.<\/p>\n

His comments came as renewed fighting raised concerns about the security of commercial shipping and energy supplies in the region.<\/p>\n

Iran and the G20 economy<\/p>\n

Iran was not the sole focus of the G20 meeting, but the conflict was closely tied to the economic issues discussed by finance ministers.<\/p>\n

The G20 chair\u2019s statement<\/a> said the global economy remained resilient despite recent shocks but warned that disruptions to energy trade could threaten economic stability.<\/p>\n

The statement called for \u201cfree, safe and predictable navigation\u201d through the Strait of Hormuz and said resolving wars and conflicts is essential to durable economic growth.<\/p>\n

All G20 members present agreed to the statement except China, which objected to four paragraphs of the document. Those objections centered on language concerning global economic imbalances, energy and trade disruptions, International Monetary Fund surveillance, and sovereign debt.<\/p>\n

Bessent said the G20\u2019s discussions demonstrated that economic growth and national security are increasingly connected.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowth is a condition upon which durable prosperity depends,\u201d he said during his closing remarks.<\/p>\n

Asheville backdrop<\/p>\n

The G20 meeting brought finance ministers and central bank governors from the world\u2019s largest economies to western North Carolina nearly two years after Hurricane Helene devastated communities across the region.<\/p>\n

The G20 chair\u2019s statement specifically recognized Asheville and western North Carolina for the region\u2019s recovery and resilience following Helene.<\/p>\n

Bessent said the international gathering also allowed foreign officials to see the region firsthand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe America knows about Asheville,\u201d Bessent said. \u201cBut now I think today the world, or in the past few days, the world has discovered Asheville.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Treasury secretary said delegates had told him they had not previously considered visiting western North Carolina and that some planned to stay in the area for several additional days.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Sen. Ted Budd, R-NC, said<\/a> the G20\u2019s discussions on the war in Iran and rising energy prices are relevant to western North Carolina\u2019s Hurricane Helene recovery because higher energy costs are making rebuilding more expensive.<\/p>\n

The summit also included its first public-private partnership, with executives from Fortune 500 companies including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Eli Lilly joining government officials, while approximately 1,000 people attended, including roughly 300 journalists from around the world.<\/p>\n

The United States holds the G20 presidency in 2026. The finance ministers and central bank governors are scheduled<\/a> to meet again in October in Bangkok before the G20 Leaders\u2019 Summit in December in Miami.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent used the G20 finance ministers meeting in Asheville to press allies on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[74009,73304,34,2288],"class_list":["post-275937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-asheville","tag-g20","tag-iran","tag-scott-bessent"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117204643273010388","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}