President Donald Trump on Friday shared details of his administrations newest sanctions on Iran, targeting the Islamic Republic's national bank over Tehran’s alleged involvement in a series of drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities last weekend.
Trump claimed they would be the “highest sanctions ever imposed on a country,” telling reporters in the Oval Office that the penalties would go “right to the top” of the Iranian government.
“You will be seeing certain things happening but a very major factor is what we did,” Trump said during a bilateral meeting with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. “The highest sanctions ever imposed on a country. We've never done it to this level.”
The latest sanctions layer on top of a slew of other penalties the Trump administration reimposed last year as a result of Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and other world powers. The existing sanctions have already targeted Iran’s oil exports, its metal and mining industries and its ability to receive financing from international banks. Tehran has repeatedly likened the sanctions to “economic warfare.”
The new sanctions will impact “the last remaining source of funds for both the central bank of Iran, as well as the national development fund — which is their sovereign wealth fund,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters Friday. “This is very big — we've now cut off all source of funds to Iran.”
The new sanctions indicate Trump is unlikely to back down from a maximum pressure campaign designed to force Tehran back to the negotiating table with the U.S., which has long accused Iran of bad behavior in the Middle East, including funding groups designated by Washintgon as terrorist organizations.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s has said repeatedly that relief from U.S. sanctions would be a precondition for any meeting between himself and Trump.The president first forecasted a new round of penalties in a tweet this week, though he did not provide any specifics at the time.
The drone strikes, which took place overnight last Saturday, disrupted half of Saudi Arabia’s oil supply and the daily equivalent of 5 percent of the world’s oil supply. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen have maintained that they are responsible for the strikes, though some U.S. officials, like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have blamed Iran for the attacks from the outset.
Throughout the week, Trump has been more hesitant to directly blame Iran, though he’s alluded to it multiple times. Saudi Arabia also took longer to publicly blame Tehran, citing the need to finish investigating the strikes, but it too finally accused Iran of carrying out the attacks later in the week.
Iran has denied any culpability for the attack and warned the U.S. that a military response will spark an “all-out war” with immediate retaliation from Tehran.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine