Trump admin's top sanctions official set to leave after Bessent tension

By Jenny Leonard, Ben Bartenstein, Daniel Flatley and Saleha Mohsin

 

John Hurley, the Trump administration’s top sanctions official, is set to leave his post after friction with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, according to people familiar with the matter. 

 

Hurley’s expected departure as Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence follows months of internal tension over the tactics and targets of US sanctions policy, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss private deliberations. His future remains unclear, with officials floating Hurley for several ambassadorial roles, in an effort to keep a loyal and valued ally within the fold, the people said.

 

A senior administration official said that Hurley is in talks with the White House for an ambassadorship and that Hurley and Bessent continue to have a great working relationship at Treasury.

 

His exit would mark the latest shakeup in senior ranks at the Treasury Department. Bessent’s first chief of staff, Dan Katz, left in the fall and his successor, Michael Friedman, left as well, according to some of the people. Bessent’s top deputy stepped down in August, while the key post of undersecretary of international affairs remains unfilled. 

 

Overall, the level of turnover has raised questions among current and former officials about stability inside one of the government’s most market-sensitive agencies. 

 

The changes come as US sanctions toward resource-rich nations including Venezuela, Iran and Russia play an increasingly pivotal role for international investors, global energy flows and geopolitical risk. In recent weeks, Treasury has been at the center of the Trump administration’s push to roll back many restrictions on the Venezuelan oil industry in a bid to boost production and open the nation up to foreign capital. 

 

Hurley has overseen Treasury’s TFI unit, a sprawling apparatus of roughly 1,000 employees that has become one of Washington’s key foreign policy tools. Over the past decade, the job has evolved into a front-line position shaping everything from oil exports to access to the dollar-based financial system. 

 

A former hedge fund executive with ties to the late investing legend Julian Robertson, Hurley was confirmed by the US Senate last July and emerged as a forceful advocate of assertive economic pressure. Colleagues have described him as disciplined and analytical, with a strong belief in the role that sanctions can play in projecting American power abroad.

 

But tensions within Treasury have grown in recent months over how sanctions authorities get deployed, particularly as some of President Donald Trump’s top advisers pursued designations against political opponents, including foreign judicial officials and international institutions, several of the people said. Some career staff raised concerns privately about reputational and diplomatic fallout, while others argued the measures were consistent with the administration’s broader strategic posture.

 

Unease within the agency has also grown as the US braces for its mutual evaluation report from the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, where international assessors are expected to flag concerns over the recent scaling back of key anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing measures, some of the people said.