But the official said the United States faced a challenge to impose sanctions without reliable help from allies and because merchants were playing a “cat-and-mouse game” to avoid being tracked on the high seas. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity while the Iranian talks were continuing.
US Navy and Coast Guard vessels patrol the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf It was encountered by Iranian military ships Three times over the past month, tensions have escalated that, if allowed to escalate, could threaten the delicate nuclear negotiations in Vienna. Twenty percent of Global oil supplies About 18 million barrels per day – it flows through the strait.
Other world powers were reluctant to impose the sanctions that were imposed, despite their objection, when the United States withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. The most prominent example came last fall, when the Trump administration announced it was reimposing them. International sanctions against Iran Which the United Nations Security Council refused to recognize.
The United States also warned that it may impose what are known as secondary sanctions on foreign buyers of Iranian oil, which would isolate them from the US markets and other deals that are processed in US dollars. This raised fears of international companies that do not want to lose access to American banks, and some analysts said it damaged relations between the United States and European allies who had hoped that the nuclear deal would open new economic markets for their industries in Iran.
“If the United States tries to use sanctions in everything, and tries to tell the rest of the world what it can and cannot do, then at some point other countries might respond and say, ‘We’re tired of this,'” said Corinne A. Goldstein, a sanctions expert and senior advisor at the law firm. Covington & Burling. “So I think the United States risks losing the power of the sanctions by misusing them.”
Since January, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control The companies were fined more than $ 2.1 million for violating their sanctions against Iran to settle or resolve years-long cases, some of which began under President Barack Obama. Treasury resolved a number of sanctions violations against Iran throughout 2020, Including a $ 4.1 million settlement with Berkshire Hathaway After one of its Turkish subsidiaries was accused of selling goods to Iran and then trying to hide the deal.
Elliott Abrams, who oversaw the drumbeat of sanctions against Iran at the end of the Trump administration, said that the sanctions have blocked Tehran with revenues amounting to tens of billions of dollars, limiting the amount of support Iran could devote to its nuclear and military programs, including its proxy. Forces across the Middle East.
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