The Trump administration on Thursday placed more sanctions on Iran, focusing on the international network of its petroleum and petrochemical industries.
The sanctions target four international petrochemical and petroleum companies for allegedly transferring the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of exports from the National Iranian Oil Company, the Treasury Department said.
It said NIOC was “an entity instrumental in Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical industries, which helps to finance Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force and its terrorist proxies".
“Iran’s petrochemical and petroleum sectors are primary sources of funding for the Iranian regime’s global terrorist activities and enable its persistent use of violence against its own people,” said the US Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin.
The businesses were accused of ordering the transfer of the equivalent of millions of dollars to NIOC for exports.
The sanctions imply that all “interests in property of these persons designated today subject to US jurisdiction are blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them".