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The Trump administration has announced sweeping new sanctions on what it calls a vast shipping empire targeting Iran's oil sales. It's part of a pressure campaign on Tehran from the White House over its nuclear program, and it follows airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites just last month. In all, the new sanctions target 115 Iran-linked individuals, entities, and vessels. Now, this comes as a new CBS investigation reveals that China is still secretly buying Iranian oil and evading the sanctions. It's using a so-called dark fleet to transfer oil from ship to ship, obscuring its origin. CBS News's Anna Coren captured some of these transfers just off the coast of Malaysia. We're about 50 nautical miles off the coast of Malaysia in what is known as the Riau Archipelago. It's a body of water where Iran's dark fleet travels to where it can then transfer US-sanctioned oil to tankers that will then head to China. Now, behind me, you can see a ship-to-ship transfer taking place as we speak. Now, the Iran-China oil trade has long been a problem for the United States, and this year, President Trump's administration placed even further sanctions on the trade. China buys 90% of Iran's sanctioned oil at a significant discount, saving billions of dollars. Now, over the years, this money has propped up the Iranian regime, its proxies, and helped fund Iran's nuclear weapons program. And while those ambitions were set back by US strikes last month, there is a strong belief by experts and former US government officials that we are speaking to that Iran now needs this trade with China more than ever to rebuild its nuclear weapons program. But to date, the Chinese have rejected these unilateral US sanctions, and they defend their trade with Iran as legitimate. Anna Coren, CBS News, Riau Archipelago off the coast of Malaysia.
