Authorities in Tehran have acknowledged that the Iranian people are facing “many problems” as the US intensifies its efforts to isolate the country’s economy with a range of sanctions that Donald Trump has called “the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country”.

Speaking on Sunday, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Trump had thrust his country into “a full-scale economic, military and security war”.

“I understand we have many problems in society right now. We are trying to prevent these as much as we can,” he said in a speech broadcast on state television.

“We are striving with all our hearts to overcome inflation, livelihood problems, unemployment, and to secure the future of the people, so that they can live with dignity and pride.”

The Iranian government has faced several waves of mass protest in recent years, often triggered by economic hardships, including inflation and exchange-rate swings leading to declining purchasing power.

At the end of December last year, a protest movement initially sparked by the rising cost of living turned into mass demonstrations denouncing those in power.

Authorities reported more than 3,000 deaths during the unrest, accusing the US and Israel of orchestrating the violence. Foreign-based NGOs, however, said Iranian officials had launched an indiscriminate crackdown that left thousands dead.

Pezeshkian’s recognition of the difficulties faced by Iranians came a day before the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, is expected to announce further punitive economic measures, which he has described as “the toughest sanctions in history” on Iran.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said on Saturday that the imminent announcement of new sanctions was an “assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty over every independent member state of ​the United Nations”, adding: “Such secondary sanctions find no foundation in international law.”

Meanwhile, the new leader of Iran’s top security body has warned its neighbours against joining new US efforts to squeeze Tehran’s economy, and threatened US commercial interests in the region, as Trump doubled down on his fanciful view that the strait of Hormuz was a new US territory.

Mohsen Rezaei, the hardline leader of Iran’s supreme national security council, told state television that Iran would target oil-shipping routes out of the Gulf – alternatives to the strait of Hormuz – if its neighbours joined what he called the “economic war” waged by the US. Those neighbours would be “considered an enemy” and “we will target their interests”, he said.

Rezaei was a commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for most of the 1980-88 war with Iraq and was named this month in a series of senior appointments widely seen as hardening Tehran’s political and military stance.

His interview with the broadcaster IRIB was his most extensive public statement since his appointment.

Rezaei also claimed Iran had more cards to play in the war, saying “we have not yet attacked any American economic interests”.

“So far, we have only targeted military bases, but if they want to impose economic sanctions on us, the United States has oil and economic companies around Iran and elsewhere, and we will strike them,” he said in the interview, which was broadcast on Saturday.

Trump’s efforts to finish the war he started along with Israel on 28 February have foundered after a ceasefire agreement signed in June collapsed, leaving Iran in control of the strait of Hormuz, a waterway that was the conduit for one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies before the conflict.

Washington has called on other governments to join its efforts to isolate the Iranian economy, notably China, among Iran’s top strategic partners. However, Beijing has criticised the initiative, arguing that US sanctions will not resolve the conflict in the Middle East.

One of Iran’s main trading partners, the United Arab Emirates, announced on Tuesday last week that it was suspending all trade and financial transactions with Tehran until further notice.

The US treasury has for months been carrying out Operation Economic Fury, aiming to cut off Iran’s funding with targeted sanctions, while a naval blockade in the strait of Hormuz has sought to prevent Iranian ports exporting oil that is vital in keeping the country’s economy afloat.

The US president has in recent days repeatedly raised the concept of declaring the strait a US territory. “We control it with the blockade, and I like the idea of declaring it a territory,” he told reporters on Monday when asked about that comment.

On Friday, he told a crowd in South Carolina: “We don’t even know if we won, because I view the strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now.”

On Saturday night, Trump again shared on his social media platform a graphic showing the Gulf and describing the strait of Hormuz as a “new US territory”.

Rezaei said in his interview that discussions continued with Iran’s cross-strait neighbour Oman over management of the waterway, and said fees would be imposed.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, are expected to discuss plans to develop alternative routes to the strait of Hormuz during the Saudi leader’s two-day visit to Paris that starts on Sunday, according to officials in the presidency who were not authorised to speak publicly.

Proposals include increasing trade through Omani ports outside the Gulf, expanding or doubling pipelines in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, and developing new rail links, the officials said.

France and Saudi Arabia have formed a taskforce on energy and logistics connections between the Middle East and Europe that is scheduled to meet at the ministerial level on Monday. The officials said the work would focus on identifying the most strategic projects, securing financing and establishing roles for French companies.

With Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters