The Washington Post:
The Trump administration on Thursday unveiled a set of punitive measures against Iran, including sanctions for petrochemical sales, in a pre-election move that analysts say could complicate efforts if a new administration takes office and seeks to rejoin the nuclear agreement with the country.
The Treasury and State departments sanctioned a total of 11 people and entities in Iran, China and Singapore for buying and selling Iranian petrochemical products.
Simultaneously, the Justice Department announced that it had filed a civil forfeiture action for Iranian-made weapons bound for Yemen that were seized by U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. It also said it had already sold 1.1 million barrels of Iranian oil confiscated from four ships headed to Venezuela and would put most of the $40 million in proceeds into a fund for terrorism victims.
“The two forfeiture complaints allege sophisticated schemes by the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] to secretly ship weapons to Yemen and fuel to Venezuela, countries that pose grave risks to the security and stability of their regions,” said John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security. “These actions represent the government’s largest-ever civil seizures of fuel and weapons from Iran.”
The Trump administration has levied sanctions against Iran nearly every week in recent months as part of its maximum pressure campaign, which so far has failed to achieve its goal stopping Iran’s missile development program and support of militant groups in the region. U.S. officials have acknowledged they have very few targets left to sanction.
The measures are likely to be the last announced against Iran before the election, less than a week away.
Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said the unsealing of documents related to the forfeitures was “divorced from politics” and had been initiated during the summer.
Elliott Abrams, the special envoy for both Iran and Venezuela, said the latest sanctions were a logical extension of a policy that by U.S. estimates has deprived the Iranian government of at least $70 billion that could have been used for missiles and support for proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas.
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