Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says seven companies were targeted for transporting steel to or from Iran.
The United States has imposed more sanctions on companies in Iran, China and the United Arab Emirates for doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and on three Iranian companies for diversifying conventional weapons.
They are the latest in a series of measures aimed at putting pressure on Tehran in the narrow days in President Donald Trump’s administration, which ends Wednesday.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that Washington had approved seven companies, including China-based Jiangyin Mascot Special Steel Co. and UAE-based Accenture Building Materials, and two for shipping steel to or from Iran.
He said Iranian Maritime Industries Group, Aerospace Industries Group and Iranian Aviation Industries Group were also blacklisted for the expansion of traditional weapons.
In a statement later Friday, Pompeo said it was also increasing the scope of metal-related sanctions against Iran administered by the State Department.
Those consciously moving 15 materials said by the State Department would be used in connection with nuclear, military or ballistic missile programs, including certain types of aluminum and steel, under sanctions , he said.
During his four years in office, Trump has sought to bring Tehran back into talks over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its activities in the Middle East. Saying that the agreement did not go far enough, Trump dropped Iran’s nuclear deal in 2018, which Tehran struck with world powers in 2015 to ratify its nuclear program as a reward for sanctions relief.
Democratic President Joe Biden, who will succeed Trump on Wednesday, has said he will return to the 2015 nuclear deal if Iran begins to stick to it.