The Trump Administration is prepared to begin enforcing strictly the U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil industry and exports, U.S. Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, told Bloomberg at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference.
The U.S. has tightened sanctions on Iranian oil exports in recent months. The Biden Administration did so at the end of 2024, but the Trump Administration has already imposed two rounds of new sanctions, aimed especially at the shadow fleet facilitating Iranian oil exports to China.
According to Secretary Wright, the Biden Administration didn’t enforce the sanctions strictly.
This allowed Iran to boost its exports to a six-year high in the middle of 2024.
The Trump Administration, however, doesn’t plan to give Iran any leeway after U.S. President Donald Trump last month directed the Secretary of State to “implement a robust and continual campaign, in coordination with the Secretary of the Treasury and other relevant executive departments or agencies, to drive Iran’s export of oil to zero, including exports of Iranian crude to the People’s Republic of China.”
The sanctions enforcement and the target to drive Iranian oil exports to a trickle are part of the U.S. Administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran.
Iran’s exports were at very low levels the previous time Trump was President, Wright told Bloomberg in an interview at the Houston conference.
“Biden didn’t remove those sanctions, but he stopped enforcing them,” Wright said.
“That enriched Iran. And now we’ve seen what’s happened with the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. It’s been mayhem. So is President Trump looking to stop the mayhem and bring peace to the world? Absolutely. Can we afford the squeezing off of Iranian oil exports? Absolutely.”
As of the end of February, Iranian exports to China, which buys around 90% of the Islamic Republic’s oil, continue as traders and middlemen rearrange tanker flows and increase ship-to-ship transfers, especially offshore Malaysia, vessel-tracking analysts say.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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