Description: The US Treasury Department has announced the newly introduced wave of sanctions against Iran’s shadow fleet that mostly delved into transporting Iranian crude oil. The information suggested that up to 30 entities and individuals were sanctioned including executives from Iran’s state – owned National Iranian Oil Co. and the Iranian Oil Terminals Co. Brokers, and intermediary companies from China, the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Hong Kong were also subjected to the wave of sanctions. The announcement represents the widened strategy of the Trump administration to curb Iranian crude oil exports to zero in an attempt to compromise Iran’s nuclear ambitions and disrupt their national economy.
Impact: Iran is currently on the proverbial geopolitical backfoot as it attempts to bolster its defensive capabilities focusing on protecting crucial assets such as their nuclear plants. Recent findings and information suggested that Israel would aim in the mid – term of directly attacking Iran’s nuclear power plants to severely deplete the country’s nuclear stockpile. The US sanctions could potentially cause short term damage but the usage of shadow fleet ships, as the last three years have shown, did little to no damage to the Russian oil exports, which suggest that Iran could circumvent the imposed sanctions and sale crude oil in order to bolster its economy and stimulate its nuclear ambitions. Tensions between Iran and the US would continue to rise as the countries are engaged in a back-and-forth geopolitical war.