Trump imposes new Iran sanctions
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s latest round of sanctions against Iran underscores his preference for using economic pressure rather than military force.
But his specific targeting Monday of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is likely to be more symbolic than punishing, given the leader’s lack of mainstream financial assets.
On Monday, Trump signed an executive order imposing new “hard-hitting” sanctions on Khamenei. At the same time, Trump called on Iran’s leaders to negotiate a new nuclear deal to replace the 2015 international pact he pulled the U.S. out of last year.
The sanctions come just days after Iran downed a high-flying U.S. Navy drone over the Persian Gulf. On Thursday night, Trump ordered, and then abruptly canceled, a retaliatory missile strike against Iran. He said the strike, which could have killed 150 Iranians, would have been disproportionate.
“(Trump’s) weapon of choice is this economic cudgel,” said Christopher R. Hill, a former U.S. ambassador to four countries. “That’s how he wants to look tough, and it’s been popular with his base. He’s not interested at all in war. He’s interested in economic warfare.”
The sanctions aim to restrict the supreme leader’s “access to key financial resources and support,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. He asserted that the leader is “responsible” for Iran’s hostile conduct.
“These measures represent a strong and proportionate response to Iran’s increasingly provocative actions,” he said.
But experts said it was unlikely the new sanctions would have a significant impact. The administration, following the Obama government before it and the United Nations, has already placed numerous punitive measures aimed at strangling the Iranian economy.
Those include restrictions on Tehran’s production and export of oil, its most important source of income, and attempts to block other countries from buying Iranian crude.
“These are a very symbolic slap in the face” that will have “no impact whatsoever,” said Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, an advocacy organization in Washington that supports detente with Tehran.
Sanctions normally cut off a person’s access to U.S.-based assets, but Khamenei is not thought to possess any. The opaque Iranian government operates largely outside the mainstream global financial systems that the U.S. can control.
“Supreme Leader Khamenei does not travel abroad, and has no bank account under his name,” said Farshad Qourbanpour, a Tehran-based analyst. “This is just psychological warfare.”
One disruption, Qourbanpour said, would be donations from Shiite communities abroad to Khamenei’s office.
Experts also noted that U.S. sanctions so far have served mostly to provoke the Islamic government. In addition to Iran’s shooting down of the U.S. drone last week, American officials accused Iran of covertly attacking oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. Iran has denied attacking the tankers.
In his comments to reporters Monday, Trump tempered his escalation of sanctions with the rhetoric of deescalation, reiterating that he would like to meet with Iran’s leaders to draw up a new agreement to curtail the country’s nuclear weapons program.
“I think a lot of restraint has been shown by us, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to show it in the future,” Trump said.
Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, speaking in a separate briefing at the White House, said sanctions would also target five naval commanders who the administration believes executed the drone attack.
In addition, he said, sanctions later this week will blacklist Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, the public face of Tehran’s government and its principal negotiator in diplomatic matters.