US State Dept. announces new sanctions on Iranian trade to 'reimpose maximum pressure'

On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department announced it would impose new sanctions on Iran’s oil trade.

“The U.S. Department of State is today designating 16 entities and vessels for their involvement in Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical industry,” said a press statement from department spokesperson Tammy Bruce.

Bruce noted that these newly sanctioned entities are included in what is now “a combined total of 22 persons and identifying 13 vessels as blocked property, across multiple jurisdictions, for their involvement in Iran’s oil industry.”

She added that these entities have engaged in deception to facilitate the sale “tens of millions of barrels” of Iranian crude oil to buyers in Asia.

“We will continue to disrupt such illicit funding streams for Iran’s malign activities,” the statement concluded. “As long as Iran devotes its energy revenues to financing attacks on our allies, supporting terrorism around the world, or pursuing other destabilizing actions, we will use all the tools at our disposal to hold the regime accountable.”

The announcement comes after Trump in early February signed National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-2, the goal of which was “to impose maximum pressure on the Iranian regime to end its nuclear threat, curtail its ballistic missile program, and stop its support for terrorist groups.”

That executive order states that Iran “remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” that it “bears responsibility” for the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks and subsequent Houthi attacks, and “commits grievous human rights abuses.”

The order further states that Iran’s nuclear program “poses an existential danger to the United States.”

Given these actions by the “revolutionary theocracy” of Iran, the order declares that it is “in the national interest to impose maximum pressure on the Iranian regime to end its nuclear threat, curtail its ballistic missile program, and stop its support for terrorist groups.”

Among the several measures to pressure Iran is a directive for the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN to “work with key allies to complete the snapback of international sanctions and restrictions on Iran.”