US sanctions against 11 companies helping Iran, including some in UAE

The US has imposed sanctions on 11 foreign companies on Thursday, charging them with facilitating Iranian exports of oil, petroleum products and petrochemicals, which is considered a violation of US sanctions.

The US Treasury Department stated that it had imposed sanctions on six companies based in Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China, as they helped in the shipping and sales of Iranian petrochemicals, and supported the Hong Kong-based Trilliance Petrochemical Company Ltd, which Washington has blacklisted.

The US State Department also revealed in a statement that it had imposed sanctions on five entities for their participation in transactions related to the oil and petrochemical industry in Iran.

In a separate statement, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced:

The actions that we take today reaffirm the United States’ commitment to deny the Iranian regime the financial resources it needs to finance terrorism and other destabilising activities.

The move means freezing any assets in the US of those affected by the sanctions, and it prevents US citizens in general from engaging in business with them.

The step also targeted Iran’s Zagros Petrochemical Company, as the Treasury Department disclosed that it had agreed to sell hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Iranian petrochemicals to Trilliance this year.

Read: US conspiracies against Iran have failed, insists Rouhani

Trilliance, a Hong Kong-based brokerage firm, was subjected to sanctions in January. It was accused of ordering the transfer of the equivalent of millions of dollars to the National Iranian Oil Company in payments for Iranian petrochemicals, crude oil and petroleum products.

According to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin: “The Iranian regime is using the proceeds of petrochemical sales to finance terrorism and the agenda which aims to destabilise countries abroad.”