Former Governor of South Carolina and erstwhile presidential candidate Nikki Haley said on Sunday that Iran’s oil exports had risen four-fold under President Joe Biden due to his “lack of enforcement.”
What Happened: In a post on X, she said that “nearly all of the oil went to China.”
“Biden's weakness on Iran is ending and not a moment too soon. America can never support the funding of terrorism,” said the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
The former governor also shared a report by the Financial Times which noted that President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is planning to reinstate its “maximum pressure” policy on Iran, aiming to cripple the nation’s ability to fund regional proxies and develop nuclear weapons.
Trump’s foreign policy team is gearing up to increase sanctions on Tehran, including vital oil exports, as soon as Trump takes office in January. “He’s determined to reinstitute a maximum pressure strategy to bankrupt Iran as soon as possible,” a national security expert familiar with the Trump transition revealed.
The strategy comes amidst Middle East turmoil following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, which ignited regional hostilities and brought Israel’s shadow war with Iran into the open. Trump’s team believes the maximum pressure tactic could force Iran into negotiations with the US, although experts consider this a long shot.
During his first term, Trump implemented a “maximum pressure” campaign after abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers, imposing hundreds of sanctions on the Islamic republic. In response, Tehran increased its nuclear activity, enriching uranium close to weapons-grade level.
Trump’s transition team is preparing executive orders to target Tehran, including tightening and adding new sanctions on Iranian oil exports. “If they really go whole hog . . . they could knock Iran's oil exports back to a few hundred thousand barrels per day,” said Bob McNally, president of consultancy Rapidan Energy.
Why It Matters: Iran’s crude oil exports have more than tripled in the past four years, from a low of 400,000 barrels a day in 2020 to more than 1.5mn b/d so far in 2024, with nearly all shipments going to China, according to the US Energy Information Agency, noted the Financial Times.
The pace of oil exports from Iran to China has been rising at a steady clip. Data from the U.S. Department of Energy shows that In 2021, Iran exported 708,000 barrels of oil to China per day, this figure rose to 838,000 barrels in 2022 and touched 1.2 million barrels per day by 2023.
While stricter enforcement could push oil prices higher, it risks retaliation from China, including moves to weaken dollar dominance through the BRICS club. Simultaneously, easing sanctions on Russia under Trump could reshape global energy dynamics, reported Reuters.
“I was a user of sanctions, but I put them on and take them off as quickly as possible, because ultimately it kills your dollar, and it kills everything the dollar represents,” said Trump in September, according to Reuters.
In recent weeks the tensions between Washington and Tehran have been escalating. The US imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil exports following Iran’s direct attack on Israel.
Shortly after, in November, the US disclosed an assassination plot by Iranian operatives targeting Trump, which was dismissed by Iran as baseless. These incidents have added fuel to the already strained relations between the two nations.
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