Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said on Friday on his Telegram channel that his country must plan to overcome "unjust sanctions."
This came after US Treasury Secretary Scott Besent announced what he described as the harshest sanctions ever imposed on Iran.
The United States also urged its allies and China to join a broad campaign of economic pressure on Iran, if there is a "desire to see the Strait of Hormuz reopened and energy prices fall again."
Treasury Secretary Scott Besent threatened on the X platform that “any country that maintains a link with Tehran will push its economy into the abyss, whether that link is voluntary or it deliberately ignores it.”
In his interview with CNBC, Besant called on China to "engage" in the campaign if it wants to "see the Strait of Hormuz reopened and energy prices fall again," saying that the matter "will succeed in Iran, and we will overthrow this regime," pledging "the largest coordinated economic isolation operation in the world."
In response to a question about whether the United States would put pressure on China, Besant said, "Many talks would prefer to take place in closed sessions."
According to Kpler Analytics data for 2025, China bought more than 80 percent of Iranian oil shipped.
Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Washington said, “Sanctions and pressure do not help solve the problem.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian also stated in a regular press conference on Friday that "sanctions and pressure will not contribute to solving the problem." He added, "China calls on all parties concerned to take responsible measures and resolve the problem through political and diplomatic means."
Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that the new US economic and trade sanctions target ordinary Iranians, describing them as “economic terrorism” and crimes against humanity.
She added that US measures will not weaken Tehran's determination to defend its independence, national sovereignty and interests.
The Iranian position came the day after Trump threatened to impose broad economic consequences on any country that provided what he described as “any kind of lifeline to Iran,” as part of a campaign aimed at increasing Tehran’s economic isolation.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Besent indicated that intensifying economic pressure on Iran may reduce the possibility of the United States being forced to return to large-scale military operations.
Data issued by Kpler showed that seven cargo ships sailed through the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, Thursday, which is half the number recorded the previous day, amid concerns about the status of shipping traffic in the Middle East in light of the continued stagnation of talks between the United States and Iran.
Of this number, four ships entered the waterway and three left it. There were no VLCCs or LNG carriers, however, data showed that one VLCC carrying propane and butane transited the Strait of Hormuz via the Iranian route. The data does not capture ships at sea with their transponders turned off.
For his part, US Vice President Jay DeVance said during an appearance on a conservative podcast: “We are living, in a sense, in a new phase in which the most effective tool we have is the economic pressure that we can put on them... It will be a difficult dance,” because Iran “will try to put economic pressure on us.”
US Central Command announced, on Thursday, that the aircraft carrier strike group George Washington had begun operating in the Middle East, after it arrived in the Central Command area of operations on Wednesday as part of a previously scheduled deployment.
The George Washington replaces the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, which spent a long period of deployment in the region and participated in military operations against Iran.
In a related context, the US Central Command (Centcom) said that it had changed the course of 67 commercial ships, disabled 3 ships, and inspected two other ships to ensure compliance with the blockade it imposed on Iran until August 20.
The United States also announced new sanctions targeting what it said was a network for financing Lebanese Hezbollah, adding in a statement that the US administration had amended a legal text that classified the party as a “terrorist organization” to confirm that it “serves the Iranian regime under the command of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
Agence France-Presse quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying that the new classification identifies Hezbollah as a proxy of Iran and not an independent entity, as it moves “with little or no attention paid to Lebanese sovereignty, the Lebanese people, and the Lebanese state.”
The sanctions announced on Thursday target ten individuals accused by Washington of belonging to a network responsible for transferring money to Hezbollah.
The US Treasury Department added that the network uses “couriers traveling on commercial flights between Lebanon, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran” to move hundreds of millions of dollars, allowing Hezbollah to “circumvent” existing sanctions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi rejected Trump's threats, considering them an attempt to divert attention from the financial problems facing the United States.
Araqchi said on the X platform on Thursday that what Trump called “economic landing day” is nothing but an attempt to divert attention from “America’s own crisis,” pointing to the rise in American debt and interest costs.
He added that doubling down on the policies he described as failed would only lead to “more defeat and hostility for the Iranians,” considering that American “economic terrorism” threatens the global economy and the sovereignty of countries.
In turn, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi mocked American pressure, saying that Washington claims that Iran is on the verge of collapse, while asking for help from its allies.
He accused the United States of repeating "miscalculations" that had previously led to more failures, and sarcastically said that Washington called its upcoming defeat an "economic war."
Conservative MP Ebrahim Rezaei, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in the Iranian Parliament, went further, considering that the “best response” to Trump’s escalation of the economic war is Iran’s withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Figures from the hard-line movement in Iran have previously suggested withdrawing from the treaty in response to American pressure.
Uncertainty about the course of the US-Iranian confrontation and negotiations was reflected in the region's markets on Thursday.
Gulf stock markets closed with mixed performance, with investors cautious about the future of the talks between Washington and Tehran, while rising oil prices provided some support to the markets.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Saudi authorities regarding the two attacks.
The announcement comes in light of the escalation of tensions between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, as the Iranian-backed group previously announced carrying out attacks on Saudi targets, including oil installations.
In this context, the British Maritime Trade Operations Authority said Thursday that six gunmen boarded a tanker, took control of it, and changed its course to Somalia.
The Authority had previously stated that it had received a report about an incident 136 nautical miles east of Mukalla in Yemen, as an oil tanker sailing west in the Gulf of Aden was informed that a ship had approached it without permission, without the Authority providing additional details.
