{"id":4065,"date":"2026-04-22T19:12:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T19:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/bessent-says-many-allies-have-asked-for-currency-swaps-amid-iran-war\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T19:12:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T19:12:44","slug":"bessent-says-many-allies-have-asked-for-currency-swaps-amid-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/bessent-says-many-allies-have-asked-for-currency-swaps-amid-iran-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Bessent says &#8216;many&#8217; allies have asked for currency swaps amid Iran war"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"RegularArticle-ArticleBody-5\" data-module=\"ArticleBody\" data-test=\"articleBody-2\" data-analytics=\"RegularArticle-articleBody-5-2\"><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\" style=\"top:0;left:0\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"InlineImage-imageEmbed\" id=\"ArticleBody-InlineImage-108295362\" data-test=\"InlineImage\">\n<div class=\"InlineImage-wrapper\">\n<div>\n<p>U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent arrives to testify during a Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on April 22, 2026 in Washington, DC. <\/p>\n<p>Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that &#8220;many&#8221; oil-rich U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf have requested a financial backstop amid economic turbulence from the war with Iran. <\/p>\n<p>Bessent&#8217;s comments go further than White House assertions to CNBC on Tuesday, where an official said the U.S. had not yet been formally asked to establish a currency swap line by the United Arab Emirates, only that there had been discussions about the topic.<\/p>\n<p>Such a swap line would provide the UAE or other Gulf nations with liquidity in the <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-6\">U.S. dollar,<span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> but comes loaded with political risk as U.S. consumers weather higher prices from the war for food, gas and other everyday purchases. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Many of our Gulf allies have requested swap lines,&#8221; Bessent said. &#8220;Swap lines, whether it&#8217;s from the Federal Reserve or the Treasury, are to maintain order in the dollar funding markets and to prevent the sale of the U.S. assets in a disorderly way.&#8221; <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<div class=\"RelatedContent-relatedContent\" id=\"RegularArticle-RelatedContent-1\">\n<div class=\"RelatedContent-container\">\n<div class=\"RelatedContent-nonCollapsibleContent\">\n<h2 class=\"RelatedContent-header\">Read more CNBC politics coverage<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p>&#8220;The swap line would both benefit the UAE and the U.S., and as I said, numerous other countries, including some of our Asian allies [who] have also requested them,&#8221; he said, without specifying which other countries.<\/p>\n<p>Gulf countries, including the UAE, have been hit hard by the war with Iran. Tehran has fired missiles at U.S. allies in the region, damaging economic infrastructure. Iran&#8217;s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has also choked oil revenues that are critical to Gulf nations. <\/p>\n<p>A currency swap could also be necessary to ensure the U.S. dollar, which is dominant in nearly all oil exchanges, remains in use.<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump said on CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Squawk Box&#8221; on Tuesday that he would like to assist the UAE if it&#8217;s possible. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If I could help them, I would,&#8221; the president said. <\/p>\n<p>Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who serves on both the Senate Finance and Foreign Relations committees, was supportive of a currency swap with the UAE in a Tuesday interview with CNBC. <\/p>\n<p>Daines said he thinks &#8220;[Bessent] is moving in that direction, and I support him in that.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Democrats, however, are likely to take advantage of the political opening from a currency swap, especially with wealthy nations in the Middle East. The UAE has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who questioned Bessent on the potential currency swap at the hearing, highlighted the domestic economic circumstances under which a swap would occur. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The war in Iran has already cost us dearly, Van Hollen said. &#8220;In addition to lives lost, we&#8217;re talking about over a billion dollars a day in taxpayer money, we&#8217;re talking about higher gas prices, higher prices overall, and now we understand that the UAE is asking you to provide them a swap line through the Exchange Stabilization Fund.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Van Hollen also noted troves of recent reporting on the UAE-U.S. relationship, including reported investments from members of the Gulf nation&#8217;s government in the Trump family&#8217;s business and the relaxing of protections around advanced artificial intelligence chips. <\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 <\/em><em>CNBC&#8217;s Megan Cassella<\/em><em> contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ArticleBody-googlePreferredSourceContainer\" data-module=\"GooglePreferredSource\" data-id=\"RegularArticle-GooglePreferredSource-5\">Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent arrives to testify during a Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on April 22, 2026 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that &#8220;many&#8221; oil-rich U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3056,3057,687,3052,2756,3058,780],"class_list":["post-4065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-allies","tag-asked","tag-bessent","tag-currency","tag-iran","tag-swaps","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}