Trump orders 'substantial increase' of Iran sanctions
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he had ordered Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to "substantially increase sanctions" imposed on Iran, amid escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran.
"I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!" Trump said in a tweet.
The president did not give any further details on the move, which follows weekend attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia that some US officials blamed on Iran. Iran has denied those allegations.
Yemen's Houthi group claimed responsibility for the strikes on a Saudi oil field and the world's largest crude processing plant which significantly disrupted global oil supplies.
But Riyadh on Wednesday said that the attacks came from the north, implying that the attack did not come from Houthi forces.
Saudi Arabia has said oil production will be fully recovered by the end of the month.
During a Monday meeting with his national security team, Trump discussed potential military and non-military responses to the attacks, including new sanctions, according to senior administration officials
Riyadh said it would produce evidence on Wednesday linking Iran to the attack.
The White House and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests to comment, the Reuters news agency said.
An already-tense relationship between Tehran and Washington has worsened over the past year, when Trump withdrew the US from a nuclear pact with Iran and six other countries saying it did not go far enough, and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
US sanctions so far have focused on energy, shipping and shipbuilding, and the financial sector.
Iran's inflation rate has soared since the sanctions were reimposed, while the IMF says that the country is expected to lose six percent of its GDP over the course of this year.
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