President Donald Trump signed a recently passed bill that imposed new sanctions on the Lebanese Iran-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah, at a ceremony at the White House commemorating the 35th anniversary of the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Fox News reported Thursday.
“At 6:22 a.m., the terrorist detonated the equivalent of 1,200 pounds, commonly known as 12,000 pounds — that’s a lot, and it’s terrible — of explosives, killing 3 American soldiers, 18 American sailors, and 220 United States Marines. That was a horrible moment,” Trump recalled in his remarks.
“Minutes later, another truck bomb took the lives of 58 French paratroopers. It was the single deadliest day for the Marines since Iwo Jima.”
The president continued, “The attack was carried out by Hezbollah, which Iran was instrumental in founding a year earlier to advance its radical agenda, and remain its main patron today. And we are doing a big number on Iran today, in case you haven’t noticed.”
The bipartisan sanctions law, the Hizballah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act of 2018, which was originally co-sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R – Fla.) and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D – N.H.), unanimously passed the Senate earlier this month.
The legislation allows international law enforcement agencies, such as Interpol, to target the terrorist group’s global financing network. An estimated 20 to 30 percent—or between $200 and $300 million per year—of Hezbollah’s $1 billion annual budget comes from sources other than the Iranian regime.
Trump noted that as a result of renewed sanctions that his administration has imposed on Iran, “They’re rioting in their streets. Their money has collapsed. Their lives are a lot different.” Instead of looking to expand their influence to the Mediterranean Sea, Iran’s leaders just “want to survive,” Trump asserted.
The United States announced its withdrawal from the nuclear deal in May and reimposed a number of sanctions on Iran that had been lifted as part of the nuclear deal in August.
Trump promised that “on November 5th, all U.S. sanctions against Iran lifted by the nuclear deal will be back in full force — every sanction that we had on there originally.”
Fox reported that Iran’s economy is projected to shrink by 3.6 percent next year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Before sanctions had been reimposed, the IMF had expected the Islamic Republic’s economy to grow by 4 percent.
Even as Trump promised to reimpose all of the sanctions that had been in place before the nuclear deal, The Wall Street Journal reported that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is considering allowing Swift — a service that facilitates cross-border transfers of cash — to remain connected to Iranian banks.
Critics of allowing Swift to remain connected to Iranian banks “doubt the ability of authorities to detect sanctioned flows” of cash, the Journal reported, and fear that this could allow Iran to bypass sanctions.
[Photo: The White House / YouTube]