New US sanctions on Iran target petroleum and petrochemical trade
WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) – Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement on Thursday, announcing new US sanctions against Iran. They aim, as Blinken said, at “significantly reducing Iranian energy exports.”
The new round of sanctions targets “Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical trade,” the Secretary’s statement explained. They follow one day after State Department Spokesperson Ned Price reaffirmed that the US would not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
Read More: US: ‘Iran will never acquire a nuclear weapon’
The new sanctions also come amid serious economic problems in Iran. On Sunday, the Iranian currency, the rial, hit a new, historic low. By Thursday, however, it had slightly recovered.
Even with the latest rebound, the rial is down 100% from just six months ago and inflation in urban areas is over 50%, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Since last autumn, the U.S, has intensified efforts to curtail Iran’s exploitation of Iraq’s banking system to circumvent sanctions. Initially, that caused serious problems for Iraq’s currency. But since the Iraq’s Foreign Minister visit to Washington last month, the value of the Iraqi dinar has stabilized, while the Iranian rial has declined.
New US Sanctions
The newly sanctioned entities include six shipping companies which “have engaged in the transport or sale of Iranian petroleum products or petrochemical companies,” Blinken stated, as well as 20 ships that belong to those companies.
Two of the shipping companies are based in China, underscoring the close ties between Beijing and Tehran, while a third company is based in Vietnam.
In addition, a fourth shipping company, based in Dubai, was sanctioned. It bears the name, Swedish Management Company, although it appears to have little relationship with Sweden.
Two petrochemical companies, which are based in Iran, were also sanctioned.
Of the 20 ships added to the sanctions list, eight belong to the sanctioned Vietnamese company—Golden Lotus Oil Gas and Real Estate.
Six of the ships belong to Swedish Management, while one of the Chinese companies owns the other six vessels.
Iran’s Economic Problems
On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Iranian rial had hit a low of 601,500 to the dollar on Sunday. However, the opposition media outlet, Iran International, reported that the rial had recovered 10% of its lost value by Thursday.
Still, as the Journal described the country’s economic situation, “Iranians are rushing to buy dollars, driven by fears that crippling U.S. sanctions are likely to remain as talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal collapse.”
“A U.S. money-laundering crackdown in neighboring Iraq has also sharply curtailed the supply of dollars being smuggled into Iran,” the Journal stated.
Initially, that crackdown resulted in a serious deterioration in the value of Iraq’s currency, prompting Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein to pay the first visit to Washington of any senior official in Iraq’s new government.
Read More: US, Iraq hail ties, following Foreign Minister’s visit
That visit appears to have stabilized the value of the Iraqi dinar, even as it has contributed to a decline in the value of the rial.
In the time since Hussein’s visit, as the Journal suggested, Iraqi, as well as U.S., procedures for handling transactions between the dinar and the dollar have become more restrictive.
“Another factor contributing to the rial’s fall,” the Journal explained, “has been new measures by the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Central Bank of Iraq aimed at halting the siphoning of dollars from Iraq to Iran and other heavily sanctioned Mideast countries.”