U.S. to Sanction Iran’s New Strait of Hormuz Authority The Biden administration’s latest move to blacklist Iran’s new Strait of Hormuz authority intensifies Washington’s economic pressure campaign, but also raises questions about whether sanctions alone can manage escalating brinkmanship in one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes.

Washington’s framing: extortion and “Economic Fury”

Conservative-leaning outlets highlight Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s effort to cast the sanctions as part of a broad, coherent strategy. The new Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), created by Tehran to vet vessels and collect tolls through the Strait of Hormuz, is described as “maritime extortion” and evidence that Operation Economic Fury is biting into Iran’s finances. Bessent touts the campaign as a “financial stranglehold on the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” aimed at depriving Tehran of revenue for “weapons programs, terrorist proxies, and nuclear ambitions.”

In this framing, sanctioning the PGSA—alongside new measures targeting eight vessels and more than 15 front companies involved in Iran’s military oil trade—is less about technical compliance and more about demonstrating resolve. Blocking any payments to the toll-collecting body is presented as building a “Wall of Steel” around Iran’s oil revenues and tightening secondary sanctions risks for foreign banks and shippers.

Legal control vs. economic warfare

From Iran’s perspective (largely inferred, as it is not directly represented in these reports), the PGSA is part of a bid to convert geographic leverage over the strait into hard currency. U.S. officials, however, argue that this amounts to using the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to “monetize its campaign of state-sponsored terror by extorting vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

Conservative coverage tends to treat these sanctions and associated military deployments as necessary defense of global commerce, emphasizing asset freezes, transaction bans, and potential civil or criminal penalties for violators. What remains contested—and largely unexamined in these accounts—is whether a steadily expanding sanctions architecture deters escalation, or simply deepens Iran’s incentive to find riskier, less transparent ways to weaponize its control of the chokepoint.

[1] Washington Examiner – “Bessent announces sanctions on Iranian strait authority to block toll payments”

[2] The Epoch Times – “US Imposes New Sanctions on Iran’s Oil Sales”

[3] The Epoch Times – “United States Sanctions Iran’s New Hormuz Control Agency”