WASHINGTON — The United States targeted more than a dozen companies and people Thursday for allegedly evading sanctions against Iran, an effort by the Obama administration to show it will enforce existing law even as it presses Congress to hold off on additional measures while world powers pursue a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran.
The action freezes the U.S. assets of firms in Panama, Singapore, Ukraine and elsewhere for maintaining covert business with Iran’s national tanker company.
Other companies involved directly in the proliferation of material useful for weapons of mass destruction also were blacklisted from the U.S. market. American citizens are banned from any transactions with the listed individuals and firms.
The announcement by the Treasury and State departments comes as the administration is furiously lobbying lawmakers to refrain from any new package of sanctions on Iran after last month’s interim nuclear agreement in Geneva.
As part of the deal, the U.S. agreed to no new nuclear-related financial penalties against Tehran for six months, and Iran’s foreign minister has warned that any such action could kill the diplomatic effort.
Still, many Republicans and Democrats in Congress have called for even tougher measures to raise pressure further on the Islamic republic, despite the administration’s pleas for patience.
On Thursday, the Obama administration received support from Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which had been seen as a likely starting point for any new sanctions from Congress.
“The administration’s request for a diplomatic pause is reasonable,” Johnson said at an Iran hearing he chaired. “A new round of U.S. sanctions now could rupture the unity of the international coalition against Iran’s nuclear program. Existing sanctions will continue to bite, and to bite hard.”
U.S. officials have stressed that most U.S. oil, banking and commercial restrictions remain in place despite the deal last month, which eased $7 billion in sanctions on Iran for a series of nuclear concessions. Secretary of State John Kerry argued this week that Iran would still lose $30 billion as a result of economic penalties that stay in force under the interim deal.
Separately Wednesday, the Royal Bank of Scotland agreed to pay $100 million to settle claims by U.S. and New York state regulators that it violated U.S. sanctions against Iran and other countries. Regulators said the bank channeled about $523 million in transactions to other banks for clients from those countries and concealed the clients’ identities in the paperwork.
