WASHINGTON: The Trump administration ordered sanctions against more than two-dozen people and companies from the Persian Gulf to China on Friday in retaliation for Iran’s recent ballistic missile test, increasing pressure on Tehran without directly undercutting a landmark nuclear deal with the country.
Those targeted by the Treasury Department include Iranian, Lebanese, Emirati and Chinese individuals and firms involved in procuring ballistic missile technology for Iran. They are now prohibited from doing any business in the United States or with American citizens. The overall impact is likely to be minimal on Iran’s economy, though some of the people and companies have relationships with Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard military forces.
“The days of turning a blind eye to Iran’s hostile and belligerent actions toward the United States and the world community are over,” Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, said in a statement.
Although White House spokesman Sean Spicer acknowledged that much of the legwork had occurred under President Barack Obama, he told reporters the Trump administration “acted swiftly and decisively” after Iran’s recent missile test and Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen firing on a Saudi naval vessel.
It is Trump’s first package of penalties against Iran, reflecting his insistence on a tougher stance toward Tehran. Throughout his election campaign, Trump accused the Obama administration of being weak on Iran, and he vowed to crack down if elected.
Iran has acknowledged that it conducted a missile test. But it insists the test didn’t violate the 2015 nuclear accord it reached with the United States and five other world powers, or a subsequent U.N. Security Council resolution extending an eight-year ban on ballistic missiles “designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.” Washington, under Obama and Trump, and its Western allies agree the matter is separate from the nuclear pact but maintain that the missile tests violate the U.N. ban.
Iran’s foreign ministry on Friday vowed counter-sanctions on American companies and firms.
Travel ban blocked
Also on Friday, a U.S. judge temporarily blocked Trump’s ban on travelers and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, siding with two states that urged a nationwide hold on the executive order that has launched legal battles across the country.
U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle ruled that Washington state and Minnesota had standing to challenge Trump’s order, which government lawyers disputed, and said they showed their case was likely to succeed.
Trump’s order last week sparked protests nationwide.
It wasn’t immediately unclear what happens next for people who had waited years to receive visas to come to America. The Department of Homeland Security wouldn’t comment, but the State Department had previously ordered visas from the seven countries revoked.
Washington became the first state to sue over the order that temporarily bans travel for people from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen and suspends the U.S. refugee program.
State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the travel ban significantly harms residents and effectively mandates discrimination. Minnesota joined the lawsuit two days later.
After the ruling, Ferguson said people from the affected countries can now apply for entry to the U.S.
“The law is a powerful thing — it has the ability to hold everybody accountable to it, and that includes the president of the United States,” Ferguson said.
The White House says it will seek an emergency stay of the order.
Up to 60,000 foreigners from the seven majority-Muslim countries had their visas canceled because of the executive order, the State Department said Friday.
That figure contradicts a statement from a Justice Department lawyer on the same day during a court hearing in Virginia about the ban. The lawyer in that case said about 100,000 visas had been revoked.
The State Department clarified that the higher figure includes diplomatic and other visas that were actually exempted from the travel ban, as well as expired visas.
Associated Press writers Josh Lederman, Julie Pace, Nasser Karimi, Alicia A. Caldwell and Martha Bellisle contributed to this report.