US President Donald Trump on Friday signed an Executive Order that imposes sanctions, visa bans, and travel restrictions against nations or groups that use Americans as bargaining chips, the State Secretary announced in a statement.
"Today, President Trump signed an Executive Order that takes unprecedented action to impose new consequences on those who wrongfully detain Americans abroad," Marco Rubio said on Friday.
"Through this Executive Order, actors designated as State Sponsors of Wrongful Detention may face severe penalties including economic sanctions, visa restrictions, foreign assistance restrictions, and travel restrictions for US passport holders," he added.
The statement did not specify any particular country or group, but a notice on the State Department's Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs strongly warns Americans against visiting Iran over the risk of wrongful detentions.
"Americans, including Iranian-Americans and other dual nationals, have been wrongfully detained, taken hostage by the Iranian government for months, and years," the department says in its travel advisory.
"The threat of detention is even greater today, do not travel to Iran under any circumstances."
Last month, the State Department advised citizens against traveling to Iran citing what it called escalating paranoia and an unprecedented crackdown on alleged spies and opponents following a 12-day war with Israel.
"The Iranian regime, following the 12-day war with Israel, is in the midst of unprecedented paranoia and a crackdown on spies and regime opponents," the State Department said in a post on its Persian X account USA Beh Farsi.
In the aftermath of the 12-day war in June, Iranian authorities have intensified pressure on minority groups as well as foreign nationals, in what experts describe as an attempt to reassert control, deflect blame, and silence dissent.
Several Europeans have been detained on charges of cooperating with Israel. French citizens Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, held in Iran since 2022, now face new espionage charges that could carry the death penalty.
Iran’s judiciary chief recently announced that over 2,000 people have been detained since the war with Israel, some facing charges of “organized collaboration with the enemy”—a charge that can carry the death penalty.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a top foreign policy adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Friday Trump’s actions resembled the aggressive policies of Nazi Germany before the Second World War.
“Political experts believe that Trump pursued a path once tested by the head of Nazi Germany, who managed to terrify the Western world by starting World War II in September 1939. In practice, Hitler’s bullying tactics were repeated by Trump,” he told the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News.
Velayati said Western powers today are acquiescing to Trump just as Britain, France and Italy once fell under Hitler’s sway.
“At that time Britain was at the peak of its power, France had been strong since Napoleon, and Italy rose after Garibaldi. These three were intimidated by Hitler, and now history has repeated itself."
"Mr. Trump, without learning from the past, is walking the same path — a path that will not be favorable to him,” he added.
China-led bloc to decide word's fate in future
Earlier this week, China hosted the leaders of Russia, India, North Korea, and Iran at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin. The gathering, along with a Chinese military parade on its sidelines, was widely seen as a show of strength directed at archrival America.
“Mr. Xi Jinping, after years of successful governance, was able at this summit to reap the fruits of the important and measured efforts he had pursued based on Chinese wisdom, and even brought his longtime rival, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to Beijing," Velayati said.
He also cited Trump’s recent Alaska pact concerning Ukraine, signed “without consulting his Western counterparts,” and said the Shanghai summit showed the move had quickly backfired.
China has shown “patience and composure in silencing Trump’s footsteps,” Velayati said, adding that Beijing is calmly countering US pressure.
The policy of relying on Asia or the East, particularly China and Russia, was promulgated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in 2018, with the catchphrase, “Looking East”.
"We should look East, not West. Pinning our hope on the West or Europe would belittle us as we will have to beg them for favors and they will do nothing," Khamenei said in a speech in October 2018.
