The Trump administration slapped fresh sanctions on Iran’s oil minister and a host of maritime service providers that have helped Tehran ferry its illicit crude across the globe, the latest in a bevy of measures meant to cripple the hardline regime’s financial networks.
For the first time, Iranian minister of petroleum Mohsen Paknejad was included in a sanctions package, signaling the Trump administration’s desire to target a central figure in the country’s oil smuggling operation. Paknejad “oversees the export of tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil and has allocated billions of dollars’ worth of oil to Iran’s armed forces for export,” according to the Treasury Department.
Additional sanctions were placed on entities from several countries, including India and China, for their role in shipping Iranian crude across the globe. This includes “a vast shadow fleet of vessels” that disguise the Iranian oil and export it primarily to Beijing at significantly reduced prices.
The sanctions are the most significant and wide-ranging to date. They were issued by both the State and Treasury departments as part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, which is meant to bankrupt the hardline regime. Oil remains one of the Islamic Republic’s chief sources of revenue, helping it fund regional terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. In announcing the new sanctions, U.S. officials said they intend to “reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero.”
“The Iranian regime continues to use the proceeds from the nation’s vast oil resources to advance its narrow, alarming self-interests at the expense of the Iranian people,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Treasury will fight and disrupt any attempts by the regime to fund its destabilizing activities and further its dangerous agenda.”
The fresh sanctions come just a day after the White House warned Iran that military options remain on the table if it does not consent to negotiations around its contested nuclear weapons program. The White House National Security Council reaffirmed this threat on Wednesday, telling the Washington Free Beacon that there are only “two ways Iran can be handled: militarily or by making a deal.”
Sanctions are a key tool in this pressure campaign. The Iranian regime raked in billions of dollars from its oil smuggling ring during the Biden-Harris administration, which failed to enforce sanctions that were already on the books.
Now flush with cash, the Iranian regime rejected recent diplomatic overtures from the Trump administration, going so far as to dare the United States to attack. But with sanctions in full force, the regime could quickly change its calculus and sit down at the bargaining table.
The inclusion of Paknejad, Iran’s oil minister, in Thursday’s sanctions is certain to get the Iranian regime’s attention. He is responsible for allocations of “billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil to the Iranian armed forces,” including the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Around 200,000 barrels of Iranian crude are allocated to the armed forces each day to supplement their budget, according to information provided by the Treasury Department.
Iran intends to increase this allocation over the next year, according to the Trump administration’s assessment, which points “to a four-fold dollar increase in oil allocations, exceeding 10 billion dollars annually and totaling over 500,000 barrels per day.”
“By the end of 2025,” the Treasury Department said, “over half of Iran’s total oil revenues will be allocated to its armed forces.”
Outside of Iran, the United States is targeting a network of oil tankers and maritime companies that ferry Iranian crude across the globe. While many of these ships were already known to facilitate Iran’s oil smuggling operation, the Biden-Harris administration refrained from taking action for four years.
One Hong Kong-flagged vessel, the PEACE HILL, was identified by the United States as transporting “millions of barrels of Iranian oil” from the Changxhing port in Dalian, China, “on behalf of the Iranian military.” Another, the San Marino-flagged SEASKY ferried “tens of thousands of metric tons of fuel” to China on behalf of Iran’s national oil company.
Both ships were hit with sanctions, as well as their two China-based operators: Heshun Transportation Trading Limited and Seasky Marine Co., Limited. A third Hong-Kong-based firm, Sun Science International Co. was also sanctioned for operating a ship called the CORONA FUN, a Panama-flagged vessel that has illicitly offloaded Iranian crude.
An additional assortment of tankers and firms—including those in Bangladesh, Africa, Liberia, Marshall Islands, and Sri Lanka—were sanctioned for running similar operations on Iran’s behalf.
Parallel sanctions were announced in tandem by the State Department, which targeted three firms and three ships complicit in Iran’s oil ring. The entities named by the State Department provide ship-to-ship oil transfer for Tehran, which helps it “disguise the Iranian origin of the cargo,” according to the announcement.
This includes the Indonesia-based PT. BINTANG SAMUDRA UTAMA and Singapore-based SHIPLOAD MARITIME PTE. LTD. Both firms operate vessels that have conducted ship-to-ship oil transfers for Iran, according to the State Department.
“The United States is acting under President Trump’s policy of maximum pressure on the Iranian regime to stop the flow of revenue it uses to fund these destabilizing activities,” the State Department said.
