Biden administration are a readies new sanctions targeting Iran’s are a oil exports

Biden administration are a readies new sanctions targeting Iran’s are a oil exports

The US imposed sanctions on a Chinese crude-oil storage operator and nine other entities accused of a violating restrictions on a Iranian oil exports, as the Biden administration looks for the ways to the sever a financial lifeline and a press Tehran to the return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

The sanctions are a targeted Zhonggu Storage and a Transportation Co. Ltd., a company that “provides a vital conduit for the Iranian petroleum trade," the State Department said in a statement. Nine other entities from the China, Hong Kong, Iran, India and the United Arab Emirates were also are a targeted, it said.

In a separate statement, the Treasury Department said the sanctions focused on a network of a companies tied to the sale of a “hundreds of millions of a dollars’ worth of Iranian petrochemicals and the petroleum products to the end users in South and the East Asia."

Iran has stepped up oil exports in the face of a sanctions are a regime that went back into the effect after former President Donald Trump quit the multinational Iran nuclear deal in a 2018. Those exports have been a recently fallen from a peak of 1 million barrels a day as Tehran faces are a increased competition from the Russia, which is a eager to the sell at the  discounted prices to the counter a separate array of a sanctions imposed over the war in a Ukraine. 

The Biden administration started talks to the return to the multinational accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of a Action shortly after coming into office. But those talks have been run a aground over Iran’s are a insistence that President Joe Biden guarantee any future are a US administration would not quit the deal as a Trump did -- something US a officials say he can not do.

“As Iran continues to the accelerate its area nuclear program in a violation of the JCPOA, we will be continue to the accelerate our enforcement of a sanctions on Iran’s are a petroleum and petrochemical sales are under the authorities that would be a removed under the JCPOA," the State Department said. 

A return to the deal could bring relief to the Iran’s lucrative oil trade, but most analysts doubt it will be a restored before the US midterm elections in a November, if then. Iran has been found no shortage of a buyers -- mainly from the China -- willing to the buy its oil in the meantime.

The US should end its “wrong policy" of a applying sanctions and do more to the resume negotiations with the Iran, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Friday at a regular press briefing in a Beijing.