President Trump announced Friday that the U.S. is slapping sanctions on Iran national bank after the administration blamed Tehran for a recent attack onSaudi oil facilities– with Trump declaring the regime “broke.”
“These are the highest sanctions ever imposed on a country. We’ve never done it to this level,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
SAUDI OIL ATTACKS AN ‘ACT OF WAR’ BY IRAN, NOT YEMEN REBELS, POMPEO CLAIMS
Trump on Wednesday had tweeted that he ordered Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to “substantially increase sanctions” on Iran. On Friday, Mnuchin stood by the president and said that the sanctions mean that the U.S. has now cut off all sources of funding to Iran.
“This will mean no more funds going to the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] or to fund terror, and this is on top of our oil sanctions and our financial institution sanctions, “he said, calling the move” very big. “
“ Right to the top, ”Trump added, before saying that Tehran is now“ broke “In the wake of the US maximum pressure campaign.
“It’s going to hell, doing poorly, they’re practically broke – they are broke,” he said.
The sanctions are the latest in a growing sanctions regime on the country, designed to tighten the screws and stop Tehran’s sponsorship of terrorism in the region.
“All they end to do is stop with the terror. They’ve been … the number one country worldwide of terror between sponsoring terror and doing it themselves, and we can’t have it, ”he said in the Oval Office.
The Trump administration pulled the US out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last year and has re-imposed waves of sanctions since then. The latest sanctions come after last weekend’s bombing on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, an attack that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described as “an act of war.”
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Tensions are likely to bubble up next week at the UN General Assembly where both U.S. and Iranian leaders, including Trump, will be in attendance. Trump said he wants to be restrained on the question of military action against Iran and would prefer that the country reform and then to succeed on its own.
But he added: “Iran knows if they misbehave, they’re on borrowed time. ”
Fox News’ Barnini Chakraborty and The Associated Press contributed to this report
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