Iran will continue to export its oil and will "break" the sanctions reinstated by the US on Monday, the nation’s leader Hassan Rouhani said in a TV address.

“America wanted to cut to zero Iran’s oil sales,” but the Islamic Republic “will continue to sell” its oil “to break sanctions,” Rouhani warned during a meeting with the economists, which was broadcast on TV.

The Iranian president said that the country will undercut Washington’s plan for sanctions on its energy and banking sectors.

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The US began re-imposing sanctions on Tehran after President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program in May, branding the deal “defective at its core.”

In the months leading up to the re-imposition of restrictions on buying Iranian oil, officials in Washington made it clear that their goal was to virtually eliminate the nation’s oil exports.

While the first round of US sanctions on Iran kicked off in August, the second round officially came into force on Monday. This was the deadline given by Trump to cease dealings with Iran, though the president did later promise to grant waivers to eight countries, allowing them to gradually reduce their oil purchases from the Islamic Republic.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the recent restrictive measures as the “toughest sanctions ever put in place” on Iran, and boasted about reducing its daily oil trade.

Tehran, in turn, called the US threats to ‘zero out’ the nation’s oil exports “political bluff,” and its leadership has vowed to defy all restrictions imposed by Washington.

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