Trump levels new sanctions against Iran

President Donald Trump on Monday leveled new sanctions against Iranian leaders, intensifying the administration's economic penalties on Tehran following a week of escalating tensions that nearly produced an American military strike against the Islamic Republic.

Trump, flanked in the Oval Office by Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, announced he would sign an executive order "imposing hard-hitting sanctions on the Supreme Leader of Iran and the office of the Supreme Leader of Iran and many others."

The action, the president said, "follows a series of aggressive behaviors by the Iranian regime in recent weeks,” including the shooting down of an U.S. Navy surveillance drone last Thursday and attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman earlier this month. Iran has denied responsibility in the tanker attacks and claimed the American drone had violated Iranian airspace, an allegation the U.S. denies.

"We know of other things that were done also that were not good and not appropriate," Trump said. "The Supreme Leader of Iran is one who ultimately is responsible for the hostile conduct of the regime. He is respected within his country. His office oversees the regime's most brutal instruments.”

The president said the new U.S. sanctions “will deny the Supreme Leader and the Supreme Leader's office and those closely affiliated with him and the office access to key financial resources," and added that the measures "represent a strong and proportionate response to Iran's increasingly provocative actions."