US Mulling Further Sanctions on Tehran

The United States government is contemplating a string of fresh sanctions on Iran’s economy, targeting the few private-sector and banking institutions yet to be pursued by Washington, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. According to deliberations in US President Donald Trump’s administration, the move would entail blacklisting 14 banks currently operating legitimately in Iran and would also restrict companies from doing business with the Islamic Republic’s entire financial sector. While the proposal was initially rejected by the White House out of fear it would hamper efforts to transfer humanitarian aid into Iran, the officials speaking with Bloomberg claim the plan now includes a solution for such cases. A secondary goal of the new set of sanctions is to present a possible Joe Biden administration with a fait accompli, making a possible renewed JCPOA deal with Iran a harder task. In recent weeks, the US was confronted with a near-unanimous opposition to its diplomatic efforts to reimpose sanctions on Iran, as United Nations votes to renew the arms embargo or “snap back” restrictions as part of the 2015 nuclear deal were met with wall-to-wall rejection.