President Trump is reportedly planning to sign an executive order that would slap sanctions on violators of an arms embargo against Iran.
A United Nations arms embargo against Iran is set to expire on Oct. 18 despite unsuccessful U.S. efforts to extend the provision. The new executive order was born out of that pending deadline, Reuters reported on Friday.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for confirmation and further details about the order but didn’t immediately receive a response.
The Trump administration claims to have instituted a “snapback” on U.N. sanctions that will go into effect at 8 p.m. on Saturday. The 2015 Iran nuclear deal stated that any signatory nations could retrigger sanctions against Iran if it substantially violated the terms of the pact agreement to freeze portions of Tehran’s nuclear program. The United States is invoking that snapback mechanism despite withdrawing from the pact in 2018.
The snapback has been criticized by countries such as Russia as well as China and has failed to get much support in the U.N. Security Council. The new executive order related to sanctions is reportedly a way for the U.S. to show that it is undeterred by the lack of support from other countries and to forge ahead with its “maximum pressure” campaign against the Iranian regime.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the need to keep the U.N. arms embargo in place on Wednesday and argued that the administration has been successful in its punitive measures against the country.
“We’ll do all the things we need to do to ensure that those sanctions are enforced,” Pompeo said. “We’ve been very successful in spite of what the world said would happen.”
