Trump Imposes Sanctions on Iran's Supreme Leader, Others -- Update
June 24 2019 - 1:40PM
Dow Jones News
By Rebecca Ballhaus and Michael R. Gordon
WASHINGTON -- President Trump on Monday signed an executive
order imposing new sanctions on Iran, including against its supreme
leader and its foreign minister.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, where he signed the
order, Mr. Trump described the sanctions as hard-hitting and said
they would deny Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and others access to financial
instruments.
"We will continue to increase pressure on Tehran," the president
said. He said he was not seeking a conflict with Iran. "I think a
lot of restraint has been shown by us -- a lot of restraint -- and
that doesn't mean we're going to show it in the future."
The move came on the same day the Trump administration said it
is planning to try to assemble an international coalition to
protect shipping in the Persian Gulf, senior State Department
officials said Monday.
However, officials did not spell out the precise role other
countries would take, saying they would serve as observers,
deterring Iranian attack by watching and taking photographs of
Iran's operations.
"This is having eyes on," said one State Department official,
who is traveling with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Saudi
Arabia. "So it's not about shooting at people. It's about shooting
pictures of Iranians."
"The U.S. will participate," added the State Department
official, who noted that the effort is being dubbed the "Sentinel
program."
The intent to set up a joint effort came after Mr. Trump
questioned in a pair of tweets Monday why the U.S. should play any
role in protecting ships in the Gulf, noting that the U.S. has
provided such protection for years "for zero compensation."
"All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on
what has always been...a dangerous journey," he wrote on Twitter on
Monday, noting China and Japan specifically.
He also said that the U.S. is becoming a self-sufficient energy
producer and no longer needs to be in the region.
"We don't even need to be there in that the U.S. has just become
(by far) the largest producer of Energy anywhere in the world!" he
wrote.
The decision to impose sanctions follows mounting tensions
between the U.S. and Iran in recent weeks. Washington has blamed
Tehran for attacks on tankers, while Tehran downed a U.S. drone and
has threatened to violate some terms of the 2015 nuclear deal from
which Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. in May 2018.
Asked if he was imposing the sanctions in response to the downed
drone, Mr. Trump said one "could probably add that into this," but
said the sanctions were "something that was going to happen
anyway."
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said afterward at a briefing
at the White House that the sanctions were both in response to the
downing of the U.S. drone and in keeping with previous plans.
The U.S. is pressing a campaign of economic pressure and seeking
ultimately to drive Iran's oil exports to zero. It has more
recently imposed sanctions on Iran's industrial-metals sector and
announced major sanctions on one of the country's biggest
petrochemical companies.
Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus@wsj.com and
Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 24, 2019 13:25 ET (17:25 GMT)
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