State Department photo/ Public Domain(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin are scheduled to detail new sanctions on Iran at the White House Friday morning — the response President Donald Trump chose after backing away from further military conflict after Iran fired missiles at U.S. forces following his order to kill Iran’s top commander, Qassem Soleimani.
“Immediately,” Trump said Thursday when asked when U.S. sanctions on Iran would go into place. “It’s already been done. We’ve increased them. They were very severe, but now it’s increased substantially.”
While Iran is already under heavy U.S. sanctions, the White House could order more individuals, businesses and government agencies to be designated, according to analysts. Last May, Trump authorized sanctions on Iranian iron, steel, aluminum and copper sectors, which the White House said comprise 10 percent of Iran’s export economy, but those have so far not been used.
“Sanctions now touch every part of the Iranian economy and are unlikely to have any further impact,” Ryan Fayhee, a former senior Justice Department prosecutor who handled sanctions cases, told ABC News, suggesting instead that only secondary sanctions — targeting foreign businesses from Russia or China, for example — would have additional impact now.
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