The USA is not going to be renewing the waivers that allowed purchase of some Iranian and Russian oil without facing U.S. sanctions, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters on Wednesday.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that Washington would not renew a 30-day waiver of sanctions on Iranian oil at sea that expires this week, and let an identical waiver on sanctions on Russian oil expire over the weekend.
“We is not going to be renewing the overall license on Russian oil, and we is not going to be renewing the overall license on Iranian oil. That was oil that was on the water prior to March 11. So all that has been used,” Bessent said at a White House briefing.
The moves signal an end to the Trump administration’s efforts to make use of the sanctions waivers to unencumber more oil supplies and lower soaring global energy prices.
The Iranian waiver, which the Treasury Department issued on March 20, allowed some 140 million barrels of oil to reach global markets and helped relieve pressure on energy supply in the course of the war, Bessent said last month. The waiver is ready to run out on April 19.
Bessent said the U.S. was now preparing to further limit latest purchases of Iranian oil with secondary sanctions.
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“Now we have told firms, we’ve told countries that in case you are buying Iranian oil, that if Iranian money is sitting in your banks, we at the moment are willing to use secondary sanctions, which is a really stern measure,” he said.
He added the measures could be “the financial equivalent” of the U.S. military’s bombing campaign against Iran.
Bessent told NBC News last week that a Treasury evaluation showed that the utmost extra amount of oil revenue Russia could get could be US$2 billion.
Critics have blasted the prospect of Russia raising extra profits that will go toward its war with Ukraine, which has continued to pull on despite U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to resolve it.
Pressed about that figure by reporters Wednesday, Bessent acknowledged Russia’s additional revenues in the course of the sanctions relief period “might have been $2 billion, we don’t know,” but defended the move.
“Let’s consider a special world where oil spiked to $150 (per barrel US) and they might have made rather a lot more by doing that, by pushing the Russian barrels that were already on the water, they were going to be sold, they were going to China irrespective of what,” he said.
“That we pushed it to our allies, we helped stabilize the oil price. … There have been doomsday scenarios, ‘Oil’s going to $150. It’s going to $200. It’s going to $250.’”
Brent crude oil prices have fallen from their peak in the course of the war of US$119 per barrel to above US$90 since U.S. President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran and efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
—With additional files from Global News