The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Friday that it imposed sanctions on Iran’s “ghost fleet” of tankers and shipping companies that the Islamic Republic uses to sell oil.
The department designated 23 vessels and 16 companies for their participation in Iran’s efforts to contravene U.S. sanctions.
Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security advisor, said the new sanctions were part of the “severe consequences” that he had threatened Iran would face after its Oct. 1 ballistic-missile attack on Israel.
He said the sanctions involve “new and significant measures to more effectively target Iran’s energy trade.”
“The new designations today also include measures against the ‘Ghost Fleet’ that carries Iran’s illicit oil to buyers around the world,” Sullivan stated. “These measures will help further deny Iran financial resources used to support its missile programs and provide support for terrorist groups that threaten the United States, its allies and partners.”
Iran uses a variety of methods to try to conceal the origin of its oil for sale on the global market, including falsifying ship location data to disguise oil transfers in the Persian Gulf, conducting ship-to-ship oil transfers and using foreign corporations to forge cargo documents to mask the Iranian origin of petroleum shipments.
Much of this oil is then sold to China, which does not recognize U.S. sanctions on Iran. Friday’s sanctions announcement notes that Iran has sold millions of barrels of oil to Chinese refineries but does not include new designations of any Chinese companies.
Critics, including former President Donald Trump, allege that these tactics and the Biden administration’s failure to enforce existing sanctions have allowed Iran to reap billions of dollars in profits to fund its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and to support terrorist proxy groups throughout the region.
Nearly all of the vessels sanctioned by the Treasury on Friday are included in a database of 459 Iranian ghost fleet tankers maintained by United Against Nuclear Iran, a nonprofit that advocates tougher U.S. measures against the regime.
Jason Brodsky, UANI’s policy director, argued that Friday’s sanctions don’t do enough to punish Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel.
“I remember when Jake Sullivan promised ‘severe consequences’ for Iran’s regime,” Brodsky wrote. “While welcome and overdue, sanctions are easy for U.S. policymakers to impose. Combining sanctions with kinetic action and diplomatic pressure is what’s needed.”
