Iran is Vulnerable to a Trumpian All-Out Economic Assault

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Iran is Vulnerable to a Trumpian All-Out Economic Assault

2025.01.15, 14:51

Since October, when the Biden administration started cracking down on Iran-linked tankers, their crude deliveries to China, which buys nearly all of Iran’s oil, have shrunk by a quarter, to 1.3m barrels per day.

Gunaz.tv

This was reported by the “Economist”.

At the same time, loadings from Iran have continued apace, in the hope of a change of circumstances. The result is that there is now four times as much Iranian oil stranded at sea—20m barrels—most of which sits off the coasts of Malaysia and Singapore.

In the final days of the Biden presidency America is striking Russia, too. On January 10th officials announced new sanctions against 143 tankers, accounting for 42% of Russia’s seaborne oil exports last year, as well as large exporters and insurers. This will cause headaches in the short term for Vladimir Putin, and is one reason why Brent crude, the global benchmark, hit $81 a barrel on January 13th, its highest in five months. Yet it is Iran that faces the bigger threat. Donald Trump remains ambivalent about blockading Russia but is committed to strangling Iran’s finances. He might well succeed, and in doing so disturb global energy markets.

For most of his tenure Joe Biden turned a blind eye to Iran’s burgeoning oil trade. Between 2018, when the first Trump administration reimposed harsh sanctions, and last year, the country’s crude exports grew twelvefold to 1.8m b/d. Then, in October, Mr Biden changed tack. In the months since, America’s Treasury has added 55 tankers to its Iran-linked blacklist, equivalent to a third of the “dark” fleet tasked with carrying Iran’s crude, says Homayoun Falakshahi of Kpler, a data firm.

GUNAZ.TV

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