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“It’s just a matter of tweaking the current law, very slightly,” the aide said.

There’s no guarantee that a government that’s finding itself in collapse wants to negotiate a nuclear treaty, those can be the worst conditions

TOTAL ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

Some lawmakers are pushing for all transactions except for those involving food and medicine to be covered by the banking sanctions, the aide said.

“You really move to a total embargo scenario,” the aide said. “The Iranian economy would collapse pretty quickly.”

At a minimum, the aide said a proposal could be revived to block any company from U.S. financial markets if it does any type of business with any type of Iranian energy firm. That plan had been floated earlier this year.

The United States has long barred U.S. firms from doing business with Iran, but last December adopted measures that forced international buyers of Iranian oil to cut their purchases.

In August, a second package of sanctions added more restrictions for international banks, insurance companies and oil traders.

As part of that law, the government is required to report next week on Iran’s natural gas production and exports, including the impact a reduction in exports would have on global natural gas prices.

In December, the administration is required to tell Congress whether Iranian exports of natural gas could be sanctioned under existing laws and what the impact of those sanctions would be.

Suzanne Maloney, an expert on Iran at the Brookings Institution, said she thinks the Obama administration would support new measures as “a reminder to Tehran that the country’s plight can get worse.”

But because Tehran still exports around a million barrels of oil every day, the regime may have enough cash reserves to be able to ride out sanctions pressure for some time, Maloney said.

“The outcome is more likely to be the corrosion of the economy, rather than its outright collapse,” she said.