US sanctions target Iran’s auto, rail sectors as blockade chokes shipping lanes
Rubio reportedly orders Iranian FM to.leave US, but delegation claims they were on their way out anyway; amid stalled talks with Tehran, Trump says he may need to ‘blow them up’
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration imposed sanctions on Iran’s rail and auto sectors and their foreign suppliers, the Treasury Department said on Thursday, widening its wartime economic campaign to isolate Tehran.
The sanctions are part of the department’s “Operation Economic Outcast,” announced August 24, which aims to cut Tehran’s funding for the war, missile construction, cyberattacks and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC.
The move extends US economic pressure on Iran from sea to land, targeting sectors Tehran has leaned on since a naval blockade cut off its oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. But the expanding sanctions risk inflicting severe costs on ordinary Iranians, one analyst said.
The US blockade of Iranian ports has forced Tehran to rely more on autos and rail for transporting petroleum, fertilizer, chemicals and other goods. Thursday’s sanctions target those alternatives, according to the Treasury Department.
The sanctions designate Iran Khodro Company, or IKCO, and SAIPA Iranian Automobile Manufacturing Company, or SAIPA. Treasury said the two companies represent more than 90 percent of Iran’s domestic auto market.
Treasury also designated the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Railway Company, which provides passenger and freight services, the Raja Passenger Trains Company, and Sherkat-E Rah Ahan-E Khamle-O-Naghle, also known as the Railway Transportation Company, which it said is a top private freight line.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the action “directly targets Iran’s enablers and lays the groundwork for the United States and our partners to drain the regime’s revenue once and for all.”
Thursday’s sanctions also target foreign companies in Indonesia, the UAE and Turkey that supply Iran’s auto industry.
“The blockade squeezed Iran at sea, sanctions increasingly isolate it by air, and now Washington is constricting its economic arteries on land,” said Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert and managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors. “You cannot choke an economy like this without choking the livelihoods of the people who depend on it.”
Israel and the US launched strikes in February to degrade the Iranian regime’s military capabilities, distance threats posed by Iran — including its nuclear and ballistic missile programs — and “create the conditions” for the Iranian people to topple the regime, the military and other Israeli leaders have said.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG passed before the war, has become the heart of the conflict due to Iran’s attempts to assert authority over the key waterway.
Rubio reportedly boots Iranian FM from US as talks stall
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered the Iranian delegation led by his counterpart Abbas Araghchi to leave the country on Monday as talks between Washington and Tehran again stalled out, Axios reported on Thursday.
“Secretary Rubio kicked out the Iranian delegation who had overstayed their welcome. The UN General Assembly was over, so it was time for them to go,” a US official told the news site, referring to the world body’s annual confab in New York City.
The report said Araghchi and the other Iranian officials departed from NYC to the Qatari capital Doha several hours after receiving the order to leave, which they maintained they were set to do soon anyway.
Araghchi last week said he floated a proposal to reopen the Hormuz in a week if the US agreed to lift its blockade of Iranian ports, release frozen Iranian assets and waive sanctions on Iranian oil sales, among other conditions.
Trump swiftly rejected the proposal, saying Iran wanted to make a deal because it was “losing so badly” but that its offer “would not be acceptable.”
Despite Trump’s public rebuffing, mediators continued working with Iran and the United States on trying to broker a deal to end the fighting and open the strait, according to officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Asked how he thinks he can reach a deal with Iran if he thinks their leaders are irrational, US President Donald Trump responded on Wednesday, “Maybe you blow them up.”
“We have to make that decision. [Either we] make a deal… but the time has come. It’s going to end very soon,” Trump claimed to reporters in the Oval Office.
Tanker hit by ‘unknown projectile’ in Hormuz
A tanker was attacked Thursday while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a British maritime agency said.
The vessel was hit by an “unknown projectile” in the strategic waterway, “resulting in a fire,” the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKMTO) said.
The crew was reported safe, but the damage was as yet unknown, UKMTO added.
The agency did not specify which flag the tanker was flying, nor did it offer its planned route. It also did not say if it was carrying crude or liquefied natural gas (LNG).
The Times of Israel Community.