The U.S. is imposing sanctions on Iran’s central bank, President Donald Trump announced Friday.
It is a move he hailed as striking right at the core of Iran’s financial institutions in retaliation for last weekend’s attacks on key Saudi oil sites.
They are the “highest sanctions ever imposed on a country,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office while hosting Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, also addressing reporters in the Oval Office, said the sanctions will result in “no more funds going to” the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and will sever Iran’s ability to gain access to international funds.”
A Treasury statement said the economic penalties target the Central Bank of Iran in addition to its national sovereign wealth fund, and Etemad Tejarate Pars Co.
The agency accused Iran’s sovereign wealth fund of being “a major source of foreign currency and funding for” the guards corps’ elite external operations branch, as well as Iran’s defense ministry.
The department noted, however, that it will continue consider exemptions requests to conduct trade with Iran for the sale of humanitarian goods, including agricultural commodities, food, medicine and medical devices.
The blacklistings follow attacks on the Kingdom’s facilities that hobbled its oil output.
