Treasury has named five more sectors of the Iranian economy under an order that reaches any foreign person operating in them, and gold and digital assets are two of the five

Gold is now a named sector of the Iranian economy for sanctions purposes. So are aviation, digital assets, shipping and technology.

A one page determination signed on Monday morning applies section 1(a)(i) of Executive Order 13902 to all five at once. Section 1(a)(i) imposes sanctions on any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to operate in such sectors of the Iranian economy as the Secretary names. Until a sector is named, the provision does nothing. Each naming widens the class of foreign persons exposed to it.

The order dates from 10 January 2020. The determination cites 31 CFR 560.802 as its procedural authority and is signed by Bradley T. Smith, the director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

What was already named

Treasury's accompanying statement says the five join earlier determinations covering Iran's financial sector and its petroleum and petrochemical sectors. Treasury calls issuing five at once unprecedented. The determination itself makes no comparison and carries no commentary of any kind.

The reach is the point

A sectoral determination is a different instrument from a designation. A designation names a person. A determination names an activity, and anyone found doing that activity becomes eligible to be named later, which is why the immediate effect on Monday was not a blocked account anywhere but an increase in the number of foreign firms that now have to establish whether what they do counts as operating in Iranian aviation, gold, shipping, technology or digital assets.

Effective the day it was signed

The determination took effect on 24 August. There is no comment period, no phase in and no delayed date, because this is the exercise of an authority that already existed rather than the making of a rule.