Sean Hustedde
Contributor
The Trump administration is lifting sanctions on Russian oil to counter Iran’s stranglehold on Middle Eastern energy.
The U.S. began Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28, killing Iranian Supreme Leader Khamanei and striking key military locations in the Islamic Republic. Iran’s retaliatory strikes caused tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to plummet, dramatically increasing prices and prompting the Trump administration to temporarily lift Russian oil sanctions. (RELATED: Iran Claims Ships From All Countries May Transit Strait Of Hormuz, Except Israel, US)
The U.S. Department of the Treasury gave a temporary 30-day waiver on Russian oil sanctions March 5 to allow for Indian refineries to purchase Russian crude oil already in transit on the sea. The U.S. Treasury announced on March 12 the temporary tariff suspension would apply to all countries until April 5.
.@POTUS is taking decisive steps to promote stability in global energy markets and working to keep prices low as we address the threat and instability posed by the terrorist Iranian regime.
To increase the global reach of existing supply, @USTreasury is providing a temporary…
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) March 12, 2026
Over 130 million barrels of Russian crude oil remained on the sea as of March 6, according to a report by Kpler.
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said the U.S. put immense pressure on India through a 25% tariff to get the nation to stop buying Russian crude oil in January interview at the World Economic Forum.
Bessent said allowing for the Indian refineries to buy in transit Russian crude oil was an inevitability because they were a quick crude oil source and would limit oil flow to China in a podcast interview posted March 12.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury referred to Bessent’s X post on the sanctions when reached for comment by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Trump administration agreed to lower the 25% tariffs on Indian imports as the Indian government agreed to scale back their purchases of Russian crude oil in February, according to a report by the Economic Times Energyworld.
Chinese state-run oil companies Sinopec and PetroChina began exploring Russian crude oil purchases following the lifting of sanctions, according to a report by Reuters. Two trade sources told Reuters that no deals had been struck as of Tuesday but Russian crude oil seemed to be the favored alternative due to it being cheaper than other alternatives like Brazil and West Africa.
The Chinese oil companies stopped purchasing Russian oil in late October to comply with the Trump administration’s sanctions on the Russian oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil, according to Reuters. (RELATED: Palmer Luckey Warns US Lead Over China In AI Is ‘Extremely Small’)
Indonesian Energy Minister Bahil Lahadalia told reporters Monday that that the country is considering Russian crude acquisitions during the U.S. sanctions reprieve, according to reporting by Reuters. Indonesian Senior Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto told reporters the government will likely have to cut spending from the budget to meet rising oil prices, rather than enter into a deficit, according to a Reuters report.
Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center Senior Fellow Edward Fishman told The New York Times that Russian oil sanctions would likely not impact the global oil price, noting that Russia’s oil delivery to Indian refineries made little to no difference to the market. Fishman said Russian oil prices had been rising since the Iran war’s beginning and there could be a likelihood of an indefinite sanctions suspension against Russian oil.
Before sanctions were lifted, Russian “shadow fleet” oil tankers were seen moving through the Gulf of Oman following the war with Iran. The M/V Trust oil tanker, a ship with a documented history of sanctions evasion, met an unidentified tanker on March 3 with its automatic identification system turned off in the Gulf of Oman, according to a Windward report. The meeting between the two ships showed characteristics common to a dark ship-to-ship transfer.
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Oh, What tangled webs we weave, when first we …
Such joined up thinking.
Should have crushed Russia in Ukraine first before dealing with Iran.
it was always in the best interests of the US to block Russia rather than pulling back to appease Putin.
Well, Russia is the dividing paradox amongst the”I’m not woke” – woke right.(I’m gonna make a lot new ‘friends’ here “)
To some it is still the ultimate evil as portraied by the MSM,
to others Putin is the shining light of a countries resurrection, patriotism and return of values and religion.
Now one can argue who the bigger hypocrite is.
Those who consequently follow the official narrative of eternal conflicts and perpetual wars against everyone else on the planet(while always being the good guys, of course),
or those who broke once free, but instantly stopped there, while still believing all the other crap(except for AGW of course) instead of following through?
FYI – you already broke an already broken Russia in the 90ies when proxy Yeltsin was installed
and Larry Summers and Ari Shleifer forced there robbing scheme onto the country, created the
“magnificent 7 ” oligarchs and stole hundreds of billions of Dollars on behalf of the Wall Street own…donor class.
Did you feel better back then?
Of course not, because none of the money went into your pockets, but up to the 0.1%.
En contraire – while you crushed and actually owned Russia(the USA had even its own room of “financial advisors” inside the Kremlin),
you got sold out by your own(ner class) government when Clinton pushed for NAFTA that destroyed millions of jobs while at the same the owner class that was stealing Russian assets started exporting Millions of US jobs to China (who you also want to crush – don’t you?).
Why do you think crushing Russia would help you now?
Russia looked back than like a 3rd world shit hole country, even worse – it looked like San Francisco.
Life expectation was below 60.
And how did they succeeded to return?
By kicking out the Oligarchs and its American owner class(which now owns Ukraine. I wonder how well this worked out for Ukrainians who ignored the Minsk accords until they killed so many people that the Russians moved in),
reversed the money flow away from the owner class towards the people, who finally started to be able to buy their own houses(always a good indicator for balanced wealth distribution)
This may work in the USA too,
as you can’t solve an internal problem by crushing something outside.
Neither in your country nor in your brain.
i agree Putin and ORBAN are about the ONLY sane EU area leaders. IF eu/nato had done as they said and NOT pushed nato shite to russias doors and used it to fake peace with they trained n armed ukies ..then a lot would be better . and MUTTI admitted clearly they had NO intention to honour Minsk how much clearer did it need to be?
my USA mate IN Russia says its good and he hates having to go to usa even to visit hes neither young nor idealistic.
Not just MUTTI, but France’s Holland also admitted the Minsk agreements were only made to allow breathing space to arm and train Ukies for a proxie war against Russia.
NATO didn’t push to Russia’s border. Those eastern European nations that were once under the Russian boot begged to join NATO. Look at Finland. Did NATO demand it join?
Oh don’t be so naïve!
General De Gaulle (President of France in case you are unaware) in 1959, just after the creation of the 6 Nations European Economic Community, now 27 Nations European Union – expansionist eastward or what?
“Oui, c’est l’Europe, depuis l’Atlantique jusqu’à l’Oural, c’est toute l’Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde.”
(Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world.)
Greater Europe.
Urals? Now where are they? Oh. Russia.
Greater Europe – updated plans are for the Federal Europe project to stretch from the West to the Pacific via Russia.
NATO is the military wing of the EU.
The fact that De Gaulle said that is meaningless. Sure, some in Europe were hoping NATO would grow- that’s not the same as forcing nations to join. They joined out of fear and hatred of Russia. Many nations were put off for many years after they applied- just to not rush it. They had to meet qualifications like democracy, etc.
You know, you can’t win an argument by calling the other person naive as it only makes you look simple minded.
Looked for the logical substitute for “demand”… would be “incentivize”:
AI:
“NATO provides significant economic benefits by ensuring regional stability, which fosters trade and investment, and by increasing member countries’ GDP through improved security. Membership often drives economic growth, with studies showing potential per capita income gains of ~15% over 10 years.”
War would have been the “why should we not?”
Money would have been the “why should we?”
If Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were not in NATO, they’d now be occupied again by Russia. Especially if Putin’s invasion into Ukraine had succeeded. Russia has always felt it didn’t have enough coast.
Upvote just for pointing out that San Francisco is worse than a third world shithole.
The Europeans are jealous of Russia because the country is so big and has so many raw resources. Their overarching goal is to defeat Russia, break it up into a bunch of smaller regions and control the resources themselves. Russia and Putin are contesting that viewpoint. And nobody (in Europe anyway) really gives a crap about Ukraine or Ukrainians, except as far as the Ukrainians die in Europe’s war so Europeans don’t have to.
Bingo. Nobody cares about Ukrainians, Iranians, or Palestinians; they’re just politically useful fodder for criticism of anyone they don’t like, to include their own governments. Plus, it makes them feel morally superior, virtue signaling “See how much we care!”.
It’s tempting to agree someone’s after the revenue stream for themselves, but it’s also hard not to notice that the current owner of the revenue stream was talking about destroying USA a long time ago. I don’t want to get into just war theory on the Internet, but that’s where the argument goes.
“The Europeans are jealous of Russia because the country is so big and has so many raw resources. Their overarching goal is to defeat Russia, break it up into a bunch of smaller regions and control the resources themselves.”
What a load of pro Russian BOT crap. Remind me again how many countries have European NATO countries invaded recently?
The Russian Federation consists of about 120 countries.
Yep, we really appeased Putin, by destroying one of his biggest client states. Now he has to get his Iranian drones elsewhere, North Korea perhaps?
Why?
Several oil pipelines bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-proposes-iraq-oil-pipeline-extension-hormuz-crisis
Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline and ADCOP pipeline
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/12/strait-of-hormuz-oil-pipelines-iran-war-saudi-arabia-uae.html
The Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline
https://engarchive.eapc.co.il/
Some of those Gulf States should bypass the Gulf of Hormuz using pipelines and rail. Saudi Arabia to the coast of Oman.
There is also talk of building a canal to bypass the Gulf of Hormuz.
All that’s left is to build huge oil terminals. Overnight if possible.
Some may say trump is working for russia.
Some may say your delusional.
Dude could have gotten himself upvotes if he had reworded that as:
ClimaChange™ may now exponentially increase due to RussianMeddling™
I would say Trump is easing Russian oil restrictions to benefit India.
India agreed to stop buying Russian oil at Trump’s request and Trump is rewarding India now for that decision by helping them out now.
How much do you get paid for each downvote? Must be pretty lucrative for you.
Clearly, Trump has few friends left other than Putin. Only Putin has the cards.
Some may say you are a China Propaganda Bot because you are always telling us how good China is doing and they are going to win this race or other and you seem to have full TDS.
What a weird concept. Why would the executive leader of the world’s largest economy secretly work for the leaders of the world’s 9th largest economy? You need some evidence beyond “Trump bad”.
Repeatedly losing to Putin doesn’t mean you are working for Putin.
It just means you’re a second rate leader. Outclassed.
Socialists say a lot of things. Few, if any of things, have ever made sense.
Even in case of blackouts in Europe UvdL will not buy any gas or oil from Russia.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-rules-out-relaxing-russian-gas-ban-to-ease-energy-crisis/
yeah well freeze or bake then ..morons
OK Ivan.
All Russian gas and oil comes with a big “made in Russia” sticker on each molecule.
Trump has banned Russian oil for Cuba. Anyone know if that ban has been lifted?
Not likely.
Trump has banned Russian oil for Cuba. Anyone know if that ban has been lifted?
Russia is THE most resource-rich Country in the World, particularly hydrocarbons.
If there are degrees of stupid, cutting off THE key supplier of oil, gas, coal, refined petroleum products, fertilisers, pre-cursor chemicals, other minerals, etc must be as stupid as it is possible to get, more stupid than taking a Gatling gun to both feet. And for what? “Plucky” Ukraine.
These are the same clowns who shut down their own hydrocarbon production, won’t exploit what’s there, making themselves reliant on third parties and exposed to events beyond their control such as natural catastrophes, political changes, market forces, wars. The same bunch of sociopaths and psychopaths who are destroying their economies and people with the futile Net Zero to “Save the Planet”. And whose cunning plan is to cover Arabia with solar panels and transmit electricity by magic cables to Europe to “solve” the intermittency problem of solar energy where the Sun doesn’t shine much particularly in Winter, and wind is often an absent guest.
Engineers always look for single point of failure in any system so they can eliminate it with alternatives, back-ups, redundancies.
Strait of Hormuz is a single point of failure for hydrocarbon supplies out of the Middle East.
Anyone of reasonable intelligence and not in a lunatic asylum can see that and its vulnerability, prey to the most fanatical bunch of religious zealots on the planet.
Did anyone reliant on safe and continuous passage through Hormuz make contingency plans? No.
The USA gets no gas and about 2% of the liquid petroleum products it consumes, via Hormuz – and now has Venezuela under its control. Why should Trump care if Hormuz is closed?
Israel and the USA attack Iran with military force.
Russia aids Iran with intelligence support against Israel and the USA.
Iran attacks Israel and the USA with pressure on the oil markets.
USA flees the oil battlefront and gives the field to Russia.
Result:
Russia wins.
Iran not defeated.
Israel not safer.
USA loses.
It’s only a battle. It’s not the whole war. Not yet.
But if you start a war and have to concede to the enemy within a month, it’s not an impressive result for a nation with pretentions to greatness.
This looks very similar to the Suez Crisis.
Former world power helps Israel and learns the world has moved on.
It’s just amazing how far off the mark some people can be.
And they actually think they make sense and know what they are talking about.
People see what they want to see many times. I think that is the case here with all the Putin apologists.
Putin’s right-hand man said Putin invaded Ukraine because he was greedy, not for any national interest. Putin murdered his right-hand man not long after he spilled the beans on Putin. That’s how murderous dictators like Putin deals with such things.
You know sometimes women become enamored of serial killers in jail. Sometimes they even marry these murderers. I think some people are enamored of murderous dictators in the same way.
A little psychological counseling is called for, it seems to me.
The competitors of Russian workers have become the workers of China and India.
The wages of workers in China and India set the wages of Russian workers.
Russia uses its welfare fund to pay for the war. Russia’s war treasury begins to run out.