{"id":23033,"date":"2025-02-27T21:22:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T19:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=23033"},"modified":"2025-02-27T21:22:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T19:22:38","slug":"can-trump-bring-iranian-oil-exports-to-zero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=23033","title":{"rendered":"Can Trump bring Iranian oil exports to zero?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The economic impact of the so-called \u201cmaximum pressure on Iran\u201d will be significant, as US President Donald Trump has set a target of zero exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, Trump signed a directive reinstating the \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d policy of his first term, warning of \u201ccatastrophic\u201d consequences if Tehran fails to reach a deal on its nuclear program. His goal of eliminating Iran\u2019s oil exports is particularly worrisome for Tehran, as it would eliminate nearly half of the government\u2019s revenue during a seven-year economic crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a first, the US Treasury Department on Thursday imposed sanctions on an international trading network, alleging that it facilitated the shipment of Iranian oil to China. In a coordinated move, the Treasury Department and the State Department announced sanctions targeting networks involved in transporting Iranian oil to China. The measures cover multiple countries, including China, India, and the United Arab Emirates, and affect several ships involved in Iran\u2019s oil exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact of this order, if fully implemented, will be significant on Iran\u2019s oil exports, but there is doubt whether it will actually reduce oil exports to zero or to the levels seen in 2020, the final year of Trump\u2019s previous presidency. In 2017, before the US sanctions were imposed, Iran exported 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd). By 2020, that number had plummeted to about 350,000 bpd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Biden took office in 2021, Iran\u2019s oil exports rebounded, peaking at nearly 1.9 million bpd in the summer of 2024. After President Biden\u2019s administration imposed sanctions on dozens of tankers involved in Iranian oil trade, exports fell by 500,000 bpd in the last quarter of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in January of this year, exports rebounded to 1.6 million bpd.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Tanker Trackers, a ship-tracking company, told Iran International that the recent fluctuations in Iran\u2019s oil exports are typical, noting that such fluctuations are common. \u201cWe saw a similar decline in the last few months of the Biden presidency, followed by a recovery. There is nothing unusual about this. The average for crude oil exports over the past year is 1.572 million barrels per day, and since January, it has been 1.567 Mbpd. So it is too early to draw conclusions,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a non-profit group dedicated to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, has, in partnership with tanker tracking companies, identified nearly 400 ships involved in the Iranian oil trade, collectively known as the \u201cshadow fleet\u201d because they attempt to smuggle Iranian oil covertly by disabling their Automatic Identification Systems (AIS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, fewer than half of these ships have been sanctioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, China is effectively Iran\u2019s only oil customer. However, it does not buy oil directly from Iran. Instead, Iranian oil is sold through intermediaries and has its ownership documents changed, rebranded as oil from Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and most notably Malaysia, before being sold to small, independent refineries in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has repeatedly said that importing oil is a matter of national security, regardless of the source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wood Mackenzie said that \u201cgiven the recent US sanctions against China and Beijing\u2019s retaliatory tariffs, we do not expect China to comply with Trump\u2019s \u2018maximum pressure\u2019 policy on Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran\u2019s daily oil exports stood at 1.66 million bpd last month. However, it is predicted that due to the reinstatement of Trump\u2019s maximum pressure policy, exports could fall to around 500,000 bpd in the coming months. The extent of this decline depends on Beijing\u2019s cooperation with the US sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China and the US trade $750 billion in annual goods and services, which heavily favors China. However, Trump recently ordered an increase in tariffs on Chinese imports, leading Beijing to threaten retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While China has repeatedly said it does not recognize the unilateral US sanctions against Iran, its recent ban on ships subject to US sanctions from docking at its ports suggests it is taking Washington\u2019s sanctions somewhat seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran\u2019s share of China\u2019s oil imports exceeds 10%, with an annual value of about $40 billion. China is also the largest buyer of Iranian sanctioned products, including metals and petrochemicals. In addition, a significant portion of Iranian refined oil products, such as fuel oil (mazut) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), is shipped to China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran’s customs data show that, excluding crude oil, the country exported goods worth $12.3 billion to China and imported $14.4 billion from China during the first ten months of the current Iranian calendar year (which began on March 21, 2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, the reduction of Iranian exports, even “to zero” as Trump expects, depends basically on China. And it is obviously part of the general trade war between the US and China. The above strongly smells of developments on the “Taiwan front”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The economic impact of the so-called \u201cmaximum pressure on Iran\u201d will be significant, as US President Donald Trump has set a target of zero…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,834],"tags":[161,655,2391,1008,160,1180,5487,2028,6637],"class_list":["post-23033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical","category-middle-east-geopolitical","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-energy","tag-exports","tag-iran","tag-oil","tag-shadow-fleet","tag-taiwan","tag-united-against-nuclear-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23033"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23037,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23033\/revisions\/23037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}