More US sanctions on Iran expected

WASHINGTON - The US government is considering additional sanctions against Iran that would target areas of its economy that have not been hit before, a senior government official told reporters on Monday.

The official said the administration aimed to follow through with new sanctions around the first anniversary of the US withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and several world powers. US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal in May.

"We just want a continued chilling effect," the official said. "We want businesses to continue to think doing business with Iran is a terrible idea at this point."

Trump announced in May that the United States would pull out of a 2015 international agreement designed to deny Teheran the ability to make nuclear weapons and he ordered sanctions be imposed again on the country.

The deal, agreed to by the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, China and Iran, sought to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb in return for the removal of sanctions that had crippled its economy.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the government hoped to take the additional measures in the coming weeks.

"The more we can do around the anniversary, the better," the official said, while adding that it takes time to put such sanctions together and that the US Treasury Department was working on them.

One of the tools the US has employed includes sanctions on oil imports from Iran. Washington has granted waivers to eight Iranian oil buyers, but could change that.

The official said the US had the ability not to give those waivers at all. "That, I think, is where we're headed," the official said.

Reducing the number of waivers would limit oil exports from Iran, the fourth-largest producer in OPEC. The US set an earlier target of driving Iranian oil exports to zero, and the official said that goal had not changed.

Reuters

(China Daily 04/03/2019 page11)