The Trump administration on Wednesday announced a series of sanctions on an Iranian shipping network, making the prospect of diplomacy with Iran even less likely.
The Treasury Department said the sanctions were targeting more than 50 individuals and entities and that it identified more than 50 ships involved in the network it says is run by the son of Ali Shamkhani, an advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Before Israel launched its war on Iran on June 13 under the cover of US negotiations with Iran, Shamkhani expressed support for a diplomatic deal with the US that would have involved Tehran reducing its nuclear enrichment. An Israeli airstrike targeted Shamkhani’s home, and he was initially reported to have been killed, but he ended up surviving the attack.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed that the sanctions against the shipping network overseen by Shamkhani’s son were the largest since the US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, in 2018.
“The Shamkhani family’s shipping empire highlights how the Iranian regime elites leverage their positions to accrue massive wealth and fund the regime’s dangerous behavior,” Bessent said. “The over 115 sanctions issued today are the largest to date since the Trump Administration implemented our campaign of maximum pressure on Iran.”
On top of the continued sanctions, the US and Israel have also been threatening to bomb Iran again. President Trump has said he would launch strikes to “wipe out” Iran’s nuclear program if it resumes enrichment, something Iranian officials say they’re planning to do.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned this week that Tehran would respond in a more “decisive manner” if the US and Israel attack again. Araghchi and other Iranian officials have said one of their main conditions for resuming talks with the US is assurances that they won’t be attacked during the next round of negotiations.
