⁍ The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday slapped counterterrorism sanctions on key players in Iran’s oil sector.

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⁍ The move followed sanctions on 18 banks in Iran that Washington sanctioned earlier this month.

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⁍ Biden supports returning to diplomacy with Iran if it comes into compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal Washington struck with Tehran and five other world powers.

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– President Trump’s decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran just before the election may have been intended to prevent a new nuclear deal with the country if Joe Biden is elected president—but it could backfire, analysts say. The Treasury Department on Monday blacklisted Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum, the National Iranian Oil Company, and the National Iranian Tanker Company, accusing them of supporting the Quds Force, an elite paramilitary arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Reuters reports. The Trump administration re-imposed sanctions on 18 banks in Iran earlier this month. The new sanctions “do not create a legal barrier to relieving sanctions under Biden,” says Henry Rome, a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group. Still, the new sanctions could “provide ammunition to congressional critics,” who might say a Biden administration was glossing over Iran’s support for terrorism if it sought a new deal with Tehran, Rome says. Biden supports returning to diplomacy with Iran if it comes into compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal Washington struck with Tehran and five other world powers. Doing that could eventually add some 2 million barrels per day of Iranian oil to world markets. But Monday’s sanctions could also offer Biden collateral when cutting an eventual deal, says Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners. “Biden can blame Trump for the strictures he put in place even as he offers their elimination as a source of goodwill during negotiations,” Book says. “A cynic would say it’s more stuff they can barter away in a deal.”