The United States on Wednesday issued new Iran-related sanctions by adding the Persian Gulf Strait Authority to its Specially Designated Nationals list, the Treasury Department’s website showed.
The authority is a body Iran has set up to manage requests for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran’s grip on the strait, the conduit for about a fifth of the global oil supply, has sent the world economy into turmoil.
It closed the strait after the U.S. and Israel launched its war against Iran on February 28.
The Persian Gulf Strait Authority published a map last week reaffirming Tehran’s claims to a wide stretch of water on either side of the choke point.
The designation was announced by the Treasury Department‘s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which maintains the SDN list of thousands of names of sanctioned individuals and entities.