Oct. 16 (UPI) — The United States has imposed fresh Iran-related sanctions amid a stalemate in the U.S.-Iran war, blacklisting an Iraq-based bank the Trump administration accuses of providing Tehran with access to U.S. dollars and international banking services.
Iraq’s International Development Bank for Investment and Finance was among the 10 entities and 16 people sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury on Thursday as part of the Trump administration’s months-long Operation Economic Outcast, which seeks to financially isolate Iran and coerce it to end its war with the United States on terms more favorable to Washington.
“The noose is tightening around Iran’s economy, and not even Iran’s so-called allies can save it,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
“The Department of the Treasury will not relent until the Iranian regime’s coffers are empty and every remaining financial lifeline sustaining its war machine has been severed.”
According to the Treasury, IDB maintains ties to Iranian government entities and Iran-backed militias. The Trump administration accuses IDB of conducting business using Iranian capital sending the resulting profits back monthly in U.S. dollars.
The Trump administration also sanctioned three other banks Thursday, with the Treasury blacklisting Iran-based Jazireh International Bank Company and Chabahar International Bank Overseas Company on accusations of being so-called offshore banks for the Iranian regime, and the State Department designated Cuba’s state-owned Banco Internacional de Comercio.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the Cuban bank of providing services to Iran’s Karafarin Bank since at least 2022, despite the U.S. Treasury having blacklisted Karafarin Bank two years earlier.
“For too long, Communist Cuba has been allowed to operate as an outpost for malign actors and terror groups — including the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism — to target the United States,” Rubio said in a statement.
“Let me be clear: The Trump administration will not tolerate a rogue state hosting hostile foreign military, intelligence and terror operations less than a hundred miles from the American homeland. We will continue to aggressively identify and eliminate the Cuban regime’s financial and security interconnections with Iran and other dangerous and hostile states and actors.”
The United States has been at war since late February, but the conflict has settled into a stalemate, with large-scale U.S. military relenting to economic warfare and intermittent fighting, and prospects on an end to the fighting appearing distant.