Speaking in Los Angeles, President Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the US would be unveiling “substantially” increased sanctions against Iran within the next 48 hours.
The sanctions are nominally about Saturday’s drone attack on Saudi oil
refineries, even though Yemen’s Houthis say they did that, not Iran.
Trump offered no specifics, but said his thoughts on Iran have not changed.
His constant interest in increasing sanctions, however, has run into a
lot of problems lately, because the US already sanctions pretty much
everything Iran does at the maximum theoretical level as it is.
This likely means any “substantial” increase is impossible, and will
probably boil down to a very vague series of targeted sanctions against
individual government officials targeting US assets of Iranians who
didn’t have any such assets to begin with.
Trump to Announce New Iran Sanctions by Friday
No details, but says US will 'substantially' increase sanctions
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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