President Trump’s team on Thurdsay targeted a new group of people and companies inside and outside of Iran that have supported the regime’s aggression against the United States.
Treasury Department officials led the crackdown, which chiefly targets enablers of Iran’s ballistic missile and shuttling of weapons into Syria. The sanctions, which freeze assets of 11 companies and people and bar them from commerce with Americans, also targeted the networks that launched cyberattacks against U.S. banks and stock markets from 2011 to 2013.
“Treasury will continue to take strong actions to counter Iran’s provocations, including support for the IRGC-Qods Force and terrorist extremists, the ongoing campaign of violence in Syria, and cyber-attacks meant to destabilize the U.S. financial system,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday in a statement accompanying the announcement.
The designations come as Trump is mulling a decision to continue to waive the sanctions that former President Barack Obama suspended in the context of the Iran nuclear agreement. Mnuchin’s move coincides with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson emphasizing that such aggression is a factor in whether Trump will stick with the nuclear deal or not.
“Iran is clearly in default of these expectations [that the nuclear deal would improve security] through their actions to prop up the [Bashar] Assad regime, to engage in malicious activities in the region, including cyber activity, aggressively developing ballistic missiles,” Tillerson said Thursday during a joint press conference in London.
Seven of targets are Iranian citizens or Iran-based companies working on cyberattacks or in support of the regime’s ballistic missile program. Two other entities, Ukraine-based airlines, were punished for “support[ing] the transport of fighters and weapons into Syria,” Mnuchin said.
The Ukrainian airlines were faulted for violating bans on “the provision of aircraft and services” to certain blacklisted airlines. That decision could affect the implementation of the Iran deal, if it strengthens efforts by some lawmakers to discourage western airplane manufacturers from selling airplanes to Iran.
“Iran’s commercial airlines have American blood on their hands,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., wrote in a letter to Trump in April. “The possibility that U.S.-manufactured aircraft could be used as tools of terror is absolutely unacceptable and should not be condoned by the U.S. government.”
Those deals might be curtailed, if not canceled, if Trump decides to back away from the Iran deal. “[W]e have to consider the totality of Iran’s activities and not let our view be defined solely by the nuclear agreement,” Tillerson said Thursday. “So it continues to be under review. No final decision’s been made.”
