Susan Kokinda said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's campaign against financial networks connected to Iran is exposing a broader offshore system while the Trump administration pursues changes in energy, Middle East policy and relations with Russia and China.

"When Larry Kudlow called Scott Bessent the best wartime Treasury secretary, I don't think he expected Bessent to target the war where he did," Kokinda said.

Bessent publicly warned that Treasury is tracking assets connected to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, specifically identifying accounts in the British Virgin Islands.

"We are tracking down the IRGC's assets, and I will say it on worldwide TV, just so you know, we know that, where in the British Virgin Islands, your accounts are at these trust companies," Bessent said.

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Kokinda focused on the British Virgin Islands' status as a British Overseas Territory and its role in offshore finance. She argued that Bessent's comments represented a warning not only to Iran but also to financial institutions handling the money.

"Do a quick political geography check: Who runs the BVI, and who runs these trust companies?" Kokinda said.

Bessent used an analogy from his childhood in South Carolina to describe the administration's approach.

"We'd end up with a lot of poison snakes in our yard, and you would take either a rake or a machete or a paddle from a boat, and you cut the head off," Bessent said.

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"But the snake, the tail kept wiggling, and you had to bury the head of the snake."

Kokinda said Treasury's campaign has placed 60 entities on notice, with Hong Kong containing the largest number of targets.

She characterized Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands as parts of an offshore financial structure with historical ties to Britain.

Bessent said the administration intends to close the targeted financial channels.

"We are going to, our partners, we are going to close all of that down. So, after 47 years, it is over, and we are telling people, either you are with us or against us," Bessent said.

Kokinda connected that financial campaign to the administration's energy strategy.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum described an effort to reduce reliance on Middle Eastern energy chokepoints.

"And so it's it's really nothing short of actually shifting the geopolitical center of of the of the global energy markets away from these choke points like in the Middle East and moving it back to the Western Hemisphere," Burgum said.

"Shifting the geopolitical center away from choke points," Kokinda said.

"This is the entire imperial model: the offshore money machine, the energy choke points, the wars that continually feed both of them, that is the system that is being targeted."

Kokinda also pointed to changes underway across the Middle East.

She cited the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Syria and the formation of the Mecca Joint Defense Alliance involving Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.

She also discussed President Donald Trump's Board of Peace framework for Gaza and argued that financial pressure against the IRGC has affected Hamas.

Kokinda then played remarks from Israeli politician and journalist Ksenia Svetlova at London's Chatham House concerning Trump's role in Middle East decision-making.

"Israel lost the ability to initiate anything in this regard. This is the most important thing, something that Israel did enjoy before this war, and now it seems that the decision-making is solely in the hands of Donald Trump, the president of the United States, not Israel," Svetlova said.

"That is a really important point," Kokinda said.

"From a Chatham House podium, the admission that one of the empire's proxies is no longer calling the shots, honestly if it ever was, but that Donald Trump is."

Kokinda said the same strategic shift could be seen at the G20 summit in Asheville, North Carolina.

Russia's finance minister, Anton Siluanov, attended after being invited by the United States, marking his first in-person appearance at such a summit since Russia invaded Ukraine four years earlier, according to Kokinda.

German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil objected to Siluanov's participation and declined to join a photograph with him.

Bessent, however, held a one-on-one meeting with Siluanov during the summit.

Trump was asked why Russia had been invited.

"What was the thinking behind inviting the Russians to the G20 meeting in Asheville? Well, we're going to see what happens, but we like getting along with everybody. One of the reasons that I'm so successful: I get along with everybody," Trump said.

Kokinda described Trump's response as a rejection of the geopolitical approach she believes has dominated international relations.

"That's the opposite of geopolitics," Kokinda said.

She also highlighted Bessent's disclosure that the administration has held private discussions with China about Iran despite broader disagreements between Washington and Beijing.

"And everyone says to me, Well, what about China? I said, We have more in common with the Chinese on Iran than we disagree with on," Bessent said.

"The Chinese agree Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. The Chinese agree that there should be free, the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. So we have had private discussions with them in terms of achieving those goals."

Kokinda said those developments, targeting offshore financial networks, reducing dependence on energy chokepoints, engaging Russia and finding areas of cooperation with China, are components of a larger change in U.S. strategy.

"Since the end of World War II, the central principle of British geopolitics has been keep everyone fighting everyone else, especially the superpowers, while we run the world economy through chokepoints, financial flows, dirty financial flows or otherwise, and proxies," Kokinda said.

"And at one summit in Asheville, hosted by the United States, that playbook was shredded."

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