The Trump administration has imposed additional sanctions targeting Iran as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic regime, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced on Jan. 23.
The Treasury designated eight entities and nine vessels that the administration says are part of Tehran’s “shadow fleet,” which helps the regime evade sanctions in the importation of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petroleum and petroleum products.
“As the Iranian people protest the Iranian regime’s catastrophic economic mismanagement, the regime continues to fund foreign proxies and missiles over the basic needs of Iranians,” stated Tommy Pigott, principal deputy U.S. State Department spokesman. “Massive inflation, crumbling infrastructure, and water and electricity shortages demonstrate that Iranians are not seeing their wealth put to good use: the Iranian regime refuses to put Iranians first.”
The recent sanctions affected ships owned or operated by companies in the United Arab Emirates, India, Oman, Seychelles, the Marshall Islands and Liberia, as well as the companies that manage their operations.
“The Iranian regime is engaged in a ritual of economic self-immolation, a process that has been accelerated by President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign,” stated Scott Bessent, the U.S. treasury secretary. “Tehran’s decision to support terrorists over its own people has caused Iran’s currency and living conditions to be in free fall.”
Friday’s sanctions “target a critical component of how Iran generates the funds used to repress its own people,” he said.
Bessent added that the Treasury “will continue to track the tens of millions of dollars that the regime has stolen and is desperately attempting to wire to banks outside of Iran.”
