With Friday Treasury Action, There Goes The 'No New Sanctions' Clause Of The MOU

The United States unveiled new sanctions on Iran Friday, an act which crucially breaks a key aspect of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agreement signed last month - namely that no new sanctions can be imposed while the warring sides negotiate to reach a lasting peace.

The ceasefire itself is already out the window, President Trump has said late this week, amid contradictory reports over indirect talks being back on. The new US Treasury action specifically targets an Iranian businessman accused of managing a global financial network for the country's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei

The US is also going after multiple exchange houses that Washington says seek to get around sanctions and maintain access to foreign currency. The three entities named are Mohammad Darbani and Partners, Lavasani and Partners, and Mohsen Khandan and Partners - along with their managing partners.

After earlier boasting that he helped engineer a currency collapse in order to get masses into the streets - related to the last January protests - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent now says he cares about the "Iranian people"...

The so-called Supreme Leader is hiding in seclusion while his regime crumbles. Treasury will continue using every tool at its disposal to isolate him and other regime elites from the global financial system. We will preserve these assets for the Iranian people. https://t.co/cAtlx2Pplv

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) July 10, 2026

The new Friday action is perhaps the single biggest indicator that the United States is ready to abandon the MoU, and that it is already in effect crumbling and defunct, following a couple nights of major tit-for-tat attacks between the US, Iran, and involving strikes on Gulf countries by Iranian forces. But the bombs have stopped as of Thursday night through Friday.

There are a couple of key MoU points which deal with the question of sanctions on Iran during the negotiating process. Number seven of the 14-points reads as follows [emphasis by ZH]:

The United States of America undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions, IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, and all unilateral US sanctions, primary and secondary, in an agreed upon schedule as part of the final deal. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America acknowledge the critical importance of the sanctions termination issue above mentioned, and expressed their intentions to immediately address these issues in the negotiations in order to achieve mutual agreement on them.

And point number nine spells out no new sanctions:

Pending the final deal, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran agree to maintain the status quo. The Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, and the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions and will not deploy additional forces in the region.

It is not only the ceasefire that's now effectively dead, but the MoU itself is clearly on life-support.

Both sides have already repeatedly accused the other of violating the terms of the MoU, but in many ways these new sanctions are confirmation that a 'new MoU' will have to be worked out, if there is a way forward.