Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday that the White House’s action Monday to restore the economic sanctions against Iran that the Obama administration lifted was part of a “maximum-pressure campaign” against Tehran.
“In the early hours of Monday, the Treasury Department will complete its full snapback of sanctions on Iran, targeting the energy, shipping and banking sectors, among others,” Mnuchin wrote in an op-ed for the Financial Times. “We are also adding back hundreds of targets previously removed from sanctions lists, as well as more than 300 new targets. This will end the relief the Barack Obama administration granted in the false hope of a change in the Iranian regime’s behaviour.”
The Trump administration’s action restores and expands sanctions lifted under a 2015 deal the Obama administration brokered in order to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons. The effort had been a major initiative in Obama’s second term. The current administration announced it would withdraw from the deal in May.
Munchin argued the deal simply failed. “From its support of Syria’s brutal Bashar al-Assad regime and the Houthis in Yemen, to missile attacks on its neighbours, the Iranian regime actually grew more aggressive. Its increasingly brazen actions highlighted the deal’s fundamental flaws and reinforced the decision to withdraw.”
The restored sanctions will cover 50 Iranian banks and subsidiary institutions as well as shipping interests and airlines with ties to the regime. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the administration was engaged in “economic war.”
“America wanted to cut to zero Iran’s oil sales … but we will continue to sell our oil … to break sanctions,” Rouhani said, according to Reuters.
