WASHINGTON — Several former US government sanctions experts said a new, supposed Iran “humanitarian” transparency mechanism announced today by the Treasury Department is likely to be seen as an intelligence-gathering mechanism to inform new US sanctions rather than facilitate Iran’s purchase of food and medicine.

“This does not help, and in fact probably makes the situation worse,” Brian O’Toole, a former official at the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, wrote on Twitter. “It’s like they’re trying to force Europe to scream and pound the table.”

“Today, the US Departments of the Treasury and State announced a new humanitarian mechanism to ensure unprecedented transparency into humanitarian trade with Iran,” the Treasury Department said in a press release today. “This mechanism will help the international community perform enhanced due diligence on humanitarian trade to ensure that funds associated with permissible trade in support of the Iranian people are not diverted by the Iranian regime to develop ballistic missiles, support terrorism, or finance other malign activities.”  

“Concurrently, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) identified Iran as a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, and issued a new rulemaking to protect the US financial system from malign Iranian financial activities,” the Treasury Department release continued.