Third Point founder Dan Loeb hosted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday at his hedge fund’s Manhattan office, according to a photo posted on Loeb’s Instagram account.

Loeb had backed Bessent, who founded the hedge fund Key Square Group in 2015, in 2024 as Bessent and now-Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick jockeyed to be named to the Treasury Department’s top position. The two also held a meeting at the Treasury Department in Washington in February 2025.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is examining pathways to repurpose Iranian assets to compensate the U.S.’ Gulf allies for damage inflicted by Iranian attacks during the war, and potential future damages, a source familiar with Bessent’s thinking told Jewish Insider.

“Treasury will utilize all tools available to allow Iranian assets to be made available to our Gulf allies to support rebuilding and repairs for any future damage caused by Iran,” the source said.

“The Secretary has also directed his team to assess conditions amongst our Gulf allies and request comprehensive estimates of the costs associated with repairing damage Iran has inflicted since the start of the conflict,” the source continued. “Treasury will further consider whether Iranian assets could be used to support repairs for past damages.”

U.S. lawmakers have similarly sought to repurpose seized Russian assets to support Ukraine’s defense during its own ongoing war.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called on U.S. allies on Tuesday to “step up” and join Washington in taking aggressive economic action against Iran and its broader terrorism financing networks.

Speaking at the No Money for Terror Conference in Paris, Bessent said that while the U.S. is “hardly alone in facing the scourge of terrorism,” international partners have failed to do enough to target the covert financial architectures that sustain Iran, transnational criminal organizations and regional proxies.

“Too often, we seem to be alone in our resolve to thwart it,” Bessent said, calling on gathered G7 nations to “join us in rooting out the financing that sustains it — from shell companies that are embedded within Europe, to shadow banking networks that lurk across the Middle East and drug cartels across the Western Hemisphere.”

Specifically, the treasury secretary pressed European nations to directly target Iranian financial infrastructure by “designating its financiers, unmasking its shell and front companies, shuttering its bank branches and dismantling its proxies.”

“It will require those of you in the Middle East and Asia to root out Iran’s shadow banking networks,” he added. “And it will require our partners around the globe to respond with force to the array of terrorists that we face — from Hezbollah to the Sinaloa Cartel. As threats move across boundaries, our unity of purpose must transcend every border.”

The remarks underscore the Trump administration’s continued use of sanctions and secondary financial tools to pressure Tehran amid the Iran war.

“For our part, no adversary has felt the force of America’s economic statecraft more ruinously than Iran,” Bessent said. 

The administration has disrupted “tens of billions” in projected Iranian oil revenue, frozen nearly half a billion dollars in regime-linked cryptocurrency,and significantly intensified its crackdowns on Tehran’s illicit shadow banking systems, he said.

“As the regime confronts the wreckage of its military, Treasury will remain relentless in our pursuit to constrict the network of vessels, intermediaries and buyers through which Iran exports both its oil and malevolence,” Bessent said.

Bessent’s comments in Paris came the same day that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions against four individuals associated with the Global Samud Flotilla, which the department said has been organized by the U.S.-designated Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad, alongside several other actors operating inside Hamas-aligned Muslim Brotherhood networks.

“The pro-terror flotilla attempting to reach Gaza is a ludicrous attempt to undermine President Trump’s successful progress toward lasting peace in the region,” Bessent said in a concurrent statement released by the department. “Treasury will continue to sever Hamas’ global financial support networks, no matter where in the world they are.”

Sens. Jim Risch (R-ID) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, this week urged the Trump administration in a letter to consider expanded sanctions relief for Syria.

Their letter, addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, marked a notable new push from two of Congress’ most senior foreign policy leaders for targeted and conditional sanctions relief for the new Syrian government, an effort that has seen broad bipartisan support in Washington, but which is opposed by the Israeli government.

Risch and Shaheen urged the administration to “remove barriers to expanded engagement with the Syrian interim government,” with an aim of balancing “opportunity and risk” and providing opportunities for U.S. partners to engage in Syria even if the U.S. takes a more cautious approach.

“We recommend a thorough review of existing U.S. regulations on Syria, to include the extension and expansion of existing general licenses and limited or short-term sanctions relief in the near term,” the lawmakers said.

They urged the Cabinet officials to offer sanctions relief for a wide range of critical fields including agriculture, energy and energy infrastructure, finance, telecommunications and education. 

The two said the U.S. should expand general license provisions to allow “more time and geographic flexibility to those on the ground” and consider “short-term sanctions relief” to increase liquidity and prevent instability, goals they believed are  “essential to achieving the conditions to advance U.S. interests.”

Risch and Shaheen said that the U.S. should also work to push the new government to intensify efforts to crack down on terrorism, prevent Iranian and Russian entrenchment, destroy remaining chemical weapons, eliminate narcotics and find missing U.S. citizens.

The senators argued that the administration should reward “irreversible” progress on these issues with “fulsome sanctions relief,” and pursue “deeper economic and diplomatic isolation” if such progress does not materialize.

They warned that some recent reports out of Syria “raise serious concerns” about backsliding on some of these issues. 

Risch and Shaheen further noted the “growing competition between Israel and Türkiye over Syria’s trajectory that may threaten American interests,” urging the administration “to move quickly to mediate between our allies.”