Bessent to Press G20 Finance Chiefs on Tighter Iran Sanctions at Asheville Summit

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is hosting the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting on Monday and Tuesday, 9 and 10 Shahrivar 1405 (August 31 and September 1, 2026), in Asheville, North Carolina. According to a CNBC report published Sunday, 8 Shahrivar 1405 (August 30, 2026), Bessent is pressing G20 members to sever economic ties with Iran, warning that countries still buying Iranian oil or handling financial transactions with Tehran face US secondary sanctions. The push comes two days after the US Treasury curbed the UAE branches of Egypt's Banque Misr on Friday, 6 Shahrivar (August 28), over their links to Iran.

A senior US Treasury official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNBC that US 30 year Treasury yields have reached their highest level in 19 years this month (August 2026), and that Bessent's earlier move to double buybacks of longer dated Treasuries to 4 billion dollars per operation had only briefly cooled those yields. Total US government debt separately crossed 40 trillion dollars for the first time on 28 Mordad 1405 (August 19, 2026).

Josh Lipsky, international economics chair at the Atlantic Council, told CNBC that Bessent wants to put Iran front and center at the meeting, while many G20 members would rather discuss US tariffs; all G20 countries and the European Union have faced 10 to 12.5 percent US tariffs since 2 Mordad (July 24) over allegedly lax enforcement of bans on goods made with forced labor. Mark Sobel, a former US Treasury official who now chairs the OMFIF think tank's US operations, said G20 economies have been hurt by the US war with Iran, which he said their countries do not support, and that no amount of US diplomacy can change that reality.