U.S. Imposes New Sanctions on Iranian Businesses

Date: 17 October 2018 - 21:25

News ID: ۵۸۶۵۱

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- New U.S. sanctions unveiled Tuesday against Iranian businesses are part of a psychological war, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said on Wednesday.
"This action shows the spitefulness of the government of America toward the Iranian people and is a clear insult to legal and international mechanisms," Qasemi said.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday slapped sanctions on a network of more than 20 businesses, including Bank Mellat and Mehr Eqtesad Bank and other companies linked to investment, commodities and engineering.
The sanctions also target Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company, the Middle East's largest tractor manufacturer, and Esfahan's Mobarakeh Steel Company, the largest steelmaker in the Middle East and North Africa region.
"America's new sanctions are a clear insult to international and legal mechanisms and a result of the American government's blind vindictiveness against the Iranian nation," Qasemi said.
The Treasury’s announcement came two weeks before the Trump administration imposes a second round of sanctions, targeting Iran’s oil sector and banking, on November 4.
The first round of the sanctions, targeting Iran's access to the U.S. dollar, metals trading, coal, industrial software, and auto sector, took effect in August.
The U.S. pulled out of a landmark 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers in May.
Qasemi denounced U.S. sanctions as "cruel and unfair”. He called Washington's "lack of adherence to international legal mechanisms" a threat not only "to the Iranian people's interests but also the world's stability and security".
Iran's Bank Parsian, among the companies sanctioned on Tuesday, said in a statement that the measures would change little. "This bank's international activities using dollars and America had ceased for years," it said.
Iran's biggest steel company similarly dismissing the measures as "nothing new".
In a statement to investors, Mobarakeh Steel Company said: "International sanctions are nothing new and Mobarakeh has faced them throughout the years just like other sectors of the Iranian economy.
"This will not disrupt the company's production, financial activities and exports," it added.
Mobarakeh was accused of supporting the Mehr Eqtesad Iranian Investment Company, which is linked to Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), according to the U.S. Treasury.
A steel industry expert in Tehran told AFP that the sanctions would not stop Mobarakeh’s exports.
"The company will now have problems doing anything, be it attracting financing from abroad or having any overseas accounts," the news agency quoted Mojtaba Fereydouni as saying.
"But sanctions cannot just stop Iran's exports. You just ship it to a third country, unload the shipments there and leave it for a few days. Then you reship them from there with no mention of Iran and a new certificate of origin.
"All this will incur a cost of $20-$30 on each tonne, but it's not impossible," he added.
Iran's steel industry was targeted under the first wave of U.S. sanctions reimposed in August. But Mobarakeh said it had indigenized its production line.
Fereydouni added that it had set up a factory to produce the key raw material of electrode graphite, which is normally imported, primarily from India.
Iran is the 10th biggest crude steel producer, according to the World Steel Association.
The government said it exported $2.53 billion of steel products between March and September, up 53 percent on the previous year -- an increase which is thought to be driven by a rush by buyers to make purchases before sanctions hit.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also repudiated new U.S. sanctions on Iran, saying Washington appears to be taking every opportunity to exert pressure on countries it dislikes.
"Regardless of what reasons, under what pretexts and against which countries the United States imposes its unilateral sanctions, we firmly oppose it,” Ryabkov told Russian state news agency Sputnik.
"The unacceptability of unilateral extraterritorial sanctions as a foreign policy tool has been and remains the core of our position. We see that Washington respects no limits in the pursuit of exerting pressure on countries it dislikes, including Iran," he added.
Years of Western sanctions have hurt the Russian economy. U.S. Congress is considering expanding sanctions on Russia’s big state banks, with an American business group warning on Tuesday that it could cause major turmoil for global energy supplies.
State banks dominate the Russian financial sector and work closely with energy giants in the world’s largest oil and gas exporter.
Alexis Rodzianko, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, told Bloomberg that hitting the banks would be "a scorched-earth approach to diplomacy”.