Trump officials warn more Iran sanctions are coming

Donald Trump administration officials today told US and foreign businesspeople that legal trade with Iran — already severely restricted by sanctions — is likely to constrict further as the first anniversary of the US exit from the 2015 nuclear deal approaches.

At a meeting on “Sanctions: A Key Foreign Policy Tool” that filled an auditorium at the State Department, US officials asserted that sanctions on Iran were strategic in nature and aimed at “specific and narrow goals,” in the words of David Peyman, the deputy assistant secretary of state for counter threat finance and sanctions.

But those goals, according to Peyman and Brian Hook, the department’s special representative for Iran, still require a 180-degree change in Iran’s regional and defense posture. While Hook said the list of 12 demands put forward by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last year is not “unrealistic,” Iran has shown no interest in coming back to the table as long as Washington remains out of the nuclear deal.

Peyman made clear that the many rounds of sanctions the US has imposed since May on Iran’s oil and financial sectors are only the beginning.

Read the full article and more in Al-Monitor.