WASHINGTON — The Trump administration slapped 18 Iranian individuals and groups with sanctions Tuesday for aiding the country’s non-nuclear weapons programs, in a bid to show that President Donald Trump is staying tough on Iran despite his moves to let the nuclear deal stay in place for now.
The latest attempt to clamp down on Iran’s military financing ranged from an Iranian-based company that aided the country’s drone program to a Turkey-based provider of naval equipment and a China-based network that helped secure electronics for Tehran. The sanctions freeze any assets in the U.S. and prevent Americans from doing business with them.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the sanctions “send a strong signal that the United States cannot and will not tolerate Iran’s provocative and destabilizing behavior.”
“This administration will continue to aggressively target Iran’s malign activity, including their ongoing state support of terrorism, ballistic missile program, and human rights abuses,” Mnuchin said.
The announcement came only hours after the Trump administration told Congress for a second time that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal and can keep enjoying sanctions relief. The administration insisted Tehran was breaching “the spirit” of the deal.
Trump, who lambasted the 2015 pact as a candidate, gave himself more time to decide whether to scuttle it or let it stand. Instead, senior Trump administration officials sought to emphasize their deep concerns about Iran’s non-nuclear behavior and vowed that those transgressions won’t go unpunished.
During the campaign, Trump told the American Israel Political Action Committee: “My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” And he returned to that theme often during the presidential race, describing the deal as “catastrophic,” among other things.
In a shift from that earlier threat to dismantle the deal, officials said the administration was working with U.S. allies to try to fix the deal’s flaws, including the expiration of some nuclear restrictions after a decade or more. The officials also said the U.S. would slap Tehran with new sanctions penalizing it for developing ballistic missiles and other activity.
Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and “the entire administration judge that Iran is unquestionably in default of the spirit” of the agreement, one official said. That assessment carries no legal force, while Trump’s certification that Iran is technically complying clears the way for sanctions to remain lifted.
The late-night announcement capped a day of frenzied, last-minute decision-making by the president, exposing deep and lingering divisions within his administration about how to deal with a top national security issue.
Since early last week, Trump’s administration had been prepared to make the certification, a quarterly requirement. Trump first told Congress in April that Iran was indeed complying. With no final decision on his broader Iran policy, the White House had planned to let the status quo stand for another three months.