WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – President Trump says he has asked the Treasury Department to "substantially increase" sanctions on Iran.
Trump on Friday said he has ordered sanctions on Iran’s national bank at "the highest level.”
The president made the remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, where he and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison were scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the Oval that the national bank was Tehran’s last source of funds. "This is very big,” Mnuchin said. "We’ve now cut off all source of funds to iran.”
Trump did not immediately elaborate on the sanctions, which he also called the "highest sanctions ever imposed on a country.”
The president’s remarks at the White House came two days after he announced via Twitter that he had instructed Mnuchin "to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!”
The president imposed a wide array of sanctions on Iran after he withdrew the U.S, last year from the 2015 Obama-era nuclear deal that Tehran inked with world powers.
His "maximum pressure” campaign was intended to force Iran back to the negotiating table to renegotiate the agreement that Trump called the "worst deal ever.”
Iran has pressured those remaining in the accord — Britain, France, Germany, the European Union, Russia and China — to abide by the terms of the deal and help ease the sanctions imposed by the US.