President Donald Trump’s administration is placing economic sanctions on a major China-based oil refinery and roughly 40 shipping companies and tankers involved in transporting Iranian oil. The move, announced Friday and first reported by The Associated Press, makes good on Trump’s
threat to impose secondary sanctions on companies and countries that do business with Iran. It’s also part of his Republican administration’s overall ramped-up campaign to cut off Iran’s key source of revenue — its oil exports.
Concurrently, the U.S. this month imposed a physical blockade on
the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf waterway that is crucial to global energy supplies.
The sanctions, which cut off the companies from the U.S. financial system and penalize anyone who does business with them, come just a few weeks before President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping are
due to meet in China.
