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The
U.S. Treasury and the U.S. State departments sanctioned more
than 30 people and ships, including the heads of Iran’s National
Iranian Oil Co., and the Iranian Oil Terminals Co., for their
role in brokering the sale and transportation of Iranian oil.
The sanctioned ships move crude oil valued in the hundreds of
millions of dollars, according to the Treasury.
This is the second round of sanctions imposed on Iranian oil
sales since President Donald Trumpissued the National Security
Presidential Memorandum 2, which calls for the U.S. to “drive
Iran’s export of oil to zero.” It also states that Iran “can
never be allowed to acquire or develop nuclear weapons.”
At the time of the memo's signing in February, Trump said from
the Oval Office that “hopefully we’re not going to have to use
it very much.”
“We will see whether or not we can arrange or work out a deal
with Iran," the president said.
“We don’t want to be tough on Iran. We don’t want to be tough on
anybody,” Trump added. “But they just can’t have a nuclear
bomb.”
Trump added that he’s given his advisers instructions to
obliterate Iran if it assassinates him.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the U.S. "will use
all our available tools to target all aspects of Iran’s oil
supply chain, and anyone who deals in Iranian oil exposes
themselves to significant sanctions risk.”
During his confirmation hearing, Bessent criticized the Biden
administration’s sanctions policies and called for the U.S. to
have a more “muscular” sanctions regime and to be more
aggressive in targeting Iran and Russian entities and oil.
An October 2024 U.S. Energy Information Administration report
estimates that Iran brought in $253 billion in oil revenues
during both Joe Biden and Trump's presidencies, between 2018 to
2024.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce in a statement said
that “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.”
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