Panama

On 19 May the US Treasury's sanctions office designated more than a dozen individuals and two dozen companies running the ships and Shell firms that route Iranian oil, a trade that leans on open registries such as Panama's. On 14 July it blacklisted about 28 tankers and Iran's central bank, Bank Markazi; the Panama-flagged VIRENT, TANJONG PAGAR 1 and SHENTON WAY were among them, in a round aimed at Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani's oil shipping network.

For Panama, each round lands on its registry rather than on its government. An open registry lets owners of any nationality fly the Panamanian flag, which keeps registration cheap and manning rules light but leaves the Autoridad Marítima de Panamá to police beneficial ownership across more than 9,000 ships.

On 13 July US Ambassador Kevin Marino Cabrera and State Department deputy assistant secretary Samuel Parker warned Panamanian banks and firms over Cuban sanctions evasion, naming Fincimex and Banco Financiero Internacional as examples of the risk. Both had been sanctioned years earlier.

The warning targets a channel Panama's banks and the Colón Free Zone provide: settlement for Cuban trade that cannot clear through correspondent banks tied to the United States. For a financial centre that depends on dollar correspondent access, a public warning from Washington raises the compliance cost of keeping Cuban business even when no new designation follows.