The US on Monday warned companies globally that they would be subject to severe penalties if they continued to have sanctionable commercial transactions with Iran, as it tightened the nooses around the Iranian regime with a set of toughest ever American sanctions.
"If a company evades our sanctions regime and secretly continues sanctionable commerce in the Islamic Republic, the US will levy severe, swift penalties on it, including potential sanctions," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.
The US on Monday imposed "the toughest ever" sanctions on a defiant Iran aimed at altering the Iranian regime's "behaviour". The sanctions cover Iran's banking and energy sectors and reinstate penalties for countries and companies in Europe, Asia and elsewhere that do not halt Iranian oil imports.
"I promise you that doing business with Iran in defiance of our sanctions will ultimately be a much more painful business decision than pulling out of Iran and being connected to Iran entirely," he told foreign reporters.
Asserting that the US wants Iran to change its behaviour, Pompeo said that at the center of it is an unprecedented campaign of economic pressure.
"Our objective is to starve the Iranian regime of the revenue it uses to fund violent and destabilising activities throughout the Middle East and, indeed, around the world," he said.
In May President Donald Trump had announced withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal, signed by his predecessor Barack Obama. Since then the US has imposed a series of sanctions on Iran, with the toughest one kicking off Monday.
"The Iranian regime has a choice: It can either do a 180-degree turn from its outlaw course of action and act like a normal country, or it can see its economy crumble," Pompeo said and hoped that a new agreement with Iran is possible.
"But until Iran makes changes in the 12 ways that I listed in May, we will be relentless in exerting pressure on the regime," he said.
Pompeo alleged that Iran has been "underwriting Lebanese Hezbollah, that presents a threat to the US and to Israel; underwriting the Houthis in Yemen, causing an enormous conflict to take place there in that country; the efforts in Iraq to undermine the Iraqi government, funding Shia militias that are not in the best interest of the Iraqi people; their efforts in Syria."
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