US and Iran exchange warnings ahead of planned new sanctions
Washington is due to announce new sanctions on Iran as oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely disrupted.
Tehran, Iran. The United States and Iran exchanged defiant statements before Washington’s scheduled announcement on Monday of new economic sanctions that could affect Iran and major trading partners including China.
The conflict was approaching its sixth month, with neither side exchanging fire nor pursuing peace talks, while oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz had virtually stopped.
Sanctions announcement
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was scheduled to hold a press conference at 2 p.m. EDT, or 6 p.m. GMT, on Monday to announce what Washington described as “the toughest sanctions in history” on Iran.
The United States also urged China to cooperate. China buys more than 80% of Iran’s shipped oil, according to 2025 data from analytics firm Kpler. Beijing called for diplomacy.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Saturday that the planned sanctions represented an “assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty over every independent member state of the United Nations.”
“Such secondary sanctions find no foundation in international law,” he said in a post on X.
Conflict and shipping disruption
US President Donald Trump, who has warned of economic consequences for any country providing “any type of lifeline to Iran,” said on Friday that Washington was observing developments in the conflict.
“They would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal, in my opinion,” Trump said of Iran.
Iran has threatened to strike unauthorised oil tankers attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz, maintaining pressure over the strategic waterway.
While the United States has effectively blockaded Iranian vessels in their ports, thousands of seafarers remained stranded aboard hundreds of vessels in the strait. Ship-tracking data showed that only four commodity ships passed through the waterway on Thursday, none of them large crude carriers or liquefied natural gas tankers.
Iraqi tanker permissions
Iran has granted permission for several Iraqi oil tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz following repeated requests from Baghdad, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.
IRNA said that securing special permission for Iraqi tankers was among Baghdad’s main requests during Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf’s visit to Iraq.
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