Trump admin announces it will reimpose all sanctions on Iran lifted under the Obama administration

The Trump administration has announced that it's reimposing all of the sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the Obama administration.

What are the details?

In a press briefing on Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced that the U.S. would be reinstating all of the sanctions on Iran that had been lifted during the Obama administration. While the Trump administration had already placed sanctions on Iran, these will be more sweeping and targeted.

During the briefing, Pompeo said, "On Nov. 5, the United States will reimpose sanctions that were lifted as part of the nuclear deal on Iran’s energy, ship-building, shipping, and banking sectors. These sanctions hit at the core areas of Iran’s economy. They are necessary to spur changes we seek on the part of the regime."

Pompeo added that Iran would have “zero oil revenue” after these new sanctions, stressing, “Let me say that again. Zero. One hundred percent of the revenue that Iran receives from the sale of crude oil will be held in foreign accounts and can be used by Iran only for humanitarian trade or bilateral trade in non-sanctioned goods and services.”

He continued:

These new sanctions will accelerate the highly successful effects of our sanctions that have already occurred. The maximum pressure we imposed has caused the rial to drop dramatically, Rouhani’s Cabinet is in disarray, and the Iranian people are raising their voices even louder against a corrupt and hypocritical regime.

On that note, our actions today are targeted at the regime, not the people of Iran, who have suffered grievously under this regime. It’s why we have and will maintain many humanitarian exemptions to our sanctions including food, agriculture commodities, medicine, and medical devices.

Are there any exemptions to these sanctions?

Pompeo said that “eight jurisdictions” will receive temporary exemptions to these sanctions, “but only because they have demonstrated significant reductions in their crude oil and cooperation on many other fronts and have made important moves towards getting to zero crude oil importation.”

He said that the sanctions on Iran could be lifted, but only if Iran's leadership met certain conditions and the Iranian leadership changed its behavior.

Mnuchin noted that this is the 19th round of sanctions that the Trump administration has placed on Iran.

The same day, Trump tweeted a meme announcing that "Sanctions are Coming” Nov. 5, parodying a line from the popular television show “Game of Thrones.”

What about the Iran nuclear deal?

In May, Trump announced that the U.S. would be pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, which he called an “embarrassment” to himself and all U.S. citizens. Trump said at the time that if he had let the deal stay in effect, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”