US expands Iran sanctions but waives them for crash help
The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) has expanded the scope of its Iran sanctions to include the country’s construction, manufacturing, mining and textile sectors, as well as eight new Specially Designated Nationals (‘SDNs’).
The sanctioned individuals include Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council; Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, Iranian armed forces deputy chief of staff; Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the volunteer Basij militia; and Mohsen Rezaie, an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (‘IRGC’) commander.
The move comes in response to Iran’s recent missile attack on the US’s Ain al-Assad airbase in Iraq, which was itself a response to the US drone strike that killed Quds Force commander General Qasem Soleimani on 3 January.
In a press briefing, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said President Donald Trump’s latest executive order (‘EO’) authorises both primary and secondary sanctions against ‘any individual owning, operating, trading with or assisting sectors of the Iranian economy, including construction, manufacturing, textiles and mining’.
Mnuchin outlined 17 new sanctions on Iran’s largest steel, iron, aluminium and copper manufacturers, along with ‘foreign purchasers and transporters of Iranian steel, and providers of critical materials needed for Iranian metal production’ as well as ‘foreign financial institutions that knowingly conduct or facilitate significant financial transactions for the supply of significant goods or services’ to the sanctioned sectors or individuals.
However, Mnuchin said his department would issue sanctions waivers to people or companies that can help investigate the 8 January crash of a Ukraine Airlines plane over Tehran, downed by Iranian missiles which Iran says were launched in error. Boeing, the plane’s manufacturer, is reportedly first in line and is working to gain OFAC approval.
