Vietnam Critical of US Sanctions Over Its Trade With Iran

The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the U.S. decision to sanction a company from the Southeast Asian country for maintaining "civil" relations with Iran. "Trade relations between Vietnam and Iran are strictly civilian, and include goods that meet the essential needs of the people and are not contrary to UN resolutions," Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang made clear at a press conference Thursday. 

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The diplomat urged the United States to reconsider its decision while stressing that Hanoi fully complies with the provisions of the United Nations Organization (UN) and avoids violating them.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted several international companies, claiming that they were facilitating the export of Iranian petrochemical products through Triliance Petrochemical Company, which Washington sanctioned in early 2020.

In addition to imposing restrictions against four companies, based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China, the United States sanctioned a company, based in Vietnam, for "conspiring" to transfer the aforementioned Iranian products. "The Vietnam Gas and Chemical Transportation Corporation was targeted because of its connection to major transactions for the transportation of oil products from Iran," the US Treasury said.

In October, the U.S. Treasury also imposed punitive measures against 5 people and 11 companies for helping to sell petrochemical products from the Persian country. 

Since the outgoing US President, Donald Trump, came to power in January 2017, he has engaged in an intense anti-Iranian policy to such an extent that, in May 2018, he withdrew his country from the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 by Teheran and the 5+1 Group. At the time the group included the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia, and China, as well as Germany. Trump then went on to re-impose a series of suffocating sanctions against the Iranian people, with the vain hope of forcing them to renegotiate their nuclear program.

Since then, the White House has been applying a policy of "maximum pressure" on Iran, threatening to punish any state that trades with the Islamic Republic.