US reimposes economic sanctions against Iran

8 nations exempt, temporarily, on oil purchases

Economic sanctions against Iran, lifted by the Obama administration as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, are being reimposed beginning Monday.

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration on Friday reimposed economic sanctions on Iran’s oil, banking, shipping and other sectors – penalties lifted by the Obama administration as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

The White House hopes the sanctions – set to go into effect Monday and aimed at more than 700 Iranian individuals and entities – will strangle Iran’s economy and force the regime into a new round of negotiations.

The U.S. wants Iran to curb its ballistic missile program and its support for terrorism, among other steps. Iran’s leaders have said they are not interested in talks with the Trump administration.

“Our ultimate aim is to compel Iran to permanently abandon its well-documented outlaw activities and behave as a normal country,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Friday in a conference call. The U.S. penalties will hit foreign countries and companies that do business with the targeted Iranian entities, including its national oil company, its banks and its shipping industry.

Critics say the move will hurt the Iranian people, not the regime, at a time when its economy is already reeling from a drop in the value of its currency and other problems.

“These sanctions are a slap in the face to the Iranian people who have been squeezed between the repression of their government and the pressure of international sanctions for decades,” Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said in a statement ahead of Pompeo’s announcement. “Impoverishing ordinary Iranians will not hurt the regime or achieve any of America’s security interests, but it will set back the Iranian people’s aspirations for years.”

Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative for Iran, said the U.S. has asked Saudi Arabia to increase its production of oil “while we take off Iranian oil from the market.”

That will help prevent a global spike in the price of oil, which would end up helping Iran. The Trump administra-

tion’s strategy – relying on Saudi Arabia to squeeze Iran – illustrates why the White House has been cautious in its response to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey.

Asked how the Trump administration could square its condemnation of Iran’s human rights abuses with its support for Saudi Arabia, which also has an abysmal record on that front, Hook said, “I can only speak to how the Saudis have helped our Iran strategy.”

The sanctions stem from President Donald Trump’s decision in May to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear agreement, negotiated by the U.S. and five other nations. Under that Obama-era deal, Iran agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons and agreed to inspections of its military sites and other facilities. In exchange, the U.S. and its partners – including Germany, France, China and Russia – lifted global sanctions that had devastated Iran’s economy.

Iran’s leaders have said they will continue to adhere to the agreement. Other signatories to the accord are trying to salvage it – with the European Union seeking to create a work-around to avoid U.S. sanctions and continue doing business with Iran. In a joint statement, the foreign and finance ministers of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom noted that 12 consecutive reports from an independent watchdog have documented Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement. And they said they would continue to do business with the regime.

Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the EU’s proposed loophole will not work – and warned that the Trump administration will go after any entity trying to dodge the U.S. sanctions.

Pompeo said eight countries, which he declined to name, were cooperating with the administration on its push to move to “zero” oil imports from Iran. Those countries will earn temporary exemptions when the sanctions go into effect.

There will also be some exemptions for food, medicine and humanitarian goods, Pompeo said.