US Imposes New Iran Sanctions as Others Try to Save Deal

Treasury Dept: China wants 'cheap Iranian oil'

With the rest of the international community scrambling to try to save the Iran nuclear deal, the US continues to undermine the process with more and more sanctions.

The Treasury Department’s latest efforts are going after Chinese and UAE companies accused of being involved in Iranian oil shipment operations. They claim China is trying to keep getting “cheap Iranian oil.

This is just the latest in a long line of efforts against trading houses, with Jam Petrochemical and its affiliates today’s target, accused of seeing hundreds of millions of dollars in products sent to East Asia.

The US sees stopping oil shipments out of Iran as a top priority, though so far this appears to be limited in its effectiveness, and comes at a time when high prices mean the US should be trying to get more oil on the global market.

The US envisions sanctions as being “tough” on Iran, thinking they are putting pressure on them for talks. At a vital time for making a deal, though, all they are really doing is convincing Iran that the US is not negotiating in good faith.

Author: Jason Ditz

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.