(JNS) U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week, said that U.S. sanctions will be increased against Iran, though the financial penalties aren’t meant to harm the Iranian people.

“We are not doing this to hurt the people of Iran; we are doing this so that Iran stops their bad activities and exporting terrorism, looking to create nuclear capabilities and missiles,” he said in pledging that Washington “will continue to ramp up more, more, more.”

As part of its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran since withdrawing the United States in May 2018 from the 2015 nuclear deal, the Trump administration declared the regime as a “jurisdiction of primary money-laundering concern.”