The US announced Monday that as of 12:01 a.m. ET Tuesday, some of the toughest sanctions on Iran waived under the Obama administration will be put back into place.



Iran will no longer be able to engage in trade using US dollars, a cornerstone of international business for the country. The country will also, according to Trump administration officials, be blocked from trade in gold and other precious metals, the import of graphite, aluminum, steel, coal, and software used for industrial purposes, and participation in the automobile market.

"None of this needs to happen," one senior administrative official said in a Monday morning background briefing with reporters. "We’ll meet with Iran at any time."

The sanctions have been looming since President Donald Trump announced in May that the United States was pulling out of a landmark deal between Iran, the US, and five other major work powers over Iran's nuclear program. Under the terms of the deal, Iran would severely curtail its research into nuclear energy and accept inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency in exchange for relief from the international sanctions that had crippled its economy.



Trump and many of his closest national security advisers — including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton — have long been open about their belief that the 2015 deal was inadequate to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. They also faulted it for focusing only on Iran's nuclear program and not its ballistic missile program.

The senior administrative officials denied that they were calling for regime change but did say that they share the concerns of those protesting corruption in Iran and stand with those protesters and the Iranian people. (Under Trump’s travel ban, those same Iranians cannot come to the United States unless they get a waiver.)



Instead, the officials insisted, the goal of the renewed sanctions push was to get Iran back to the table so that Trump, who has called the deal among the "worst in history," can renegotiate it. Last week, Trump insisted that he'd meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani without preconditions, only to be rebuffed by Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif. On Monday, Zarif was quoted by Iranian state television as saying that Trump and his regional allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, have become "isolated" over their policy toward Tehran.



Rouhani, in an interview with state-run television, said that Iran is "always ready to negotiate. But [the US needs] to return to JCPOA. And they need to be honest. You can’t negotiate while putting sanctions on Iran, sanctions on Iranian children."