US officials confirmed Friday that there is an active internal process on considering waivers for countries that intend to continue to buy oil from Iran in violation of US sanctions. This is ongoing in spite of John Bolton claiming only the day before that there would be no waivers at all.
Though the administration had indicated in the past they were loathe to accept any waiver requests, today’s comments mark the first time they’ve confirmed that a process of review even exists, and is active. Several nations, including India and Iraq, have been seeking waivers form the US, while the European Union, China, and Russia have indicated they’ll just defy the sanctions outright.
The EU announcement that they are establishing their own clearing house to skirt US banking sanctions likely is playing a role in this US decision to review the waivers. China buys more than half of Iran’s oil, and with the EU buying it’s clear this “drop to zero” plan for Iran’s exports is going nowhere. Punishing other allies for trading with Iran makes less and less sense in that context.
Historically, Iran’s oil trade has tended to flow mostly eastward, toward the Asian Pacific region. Nations like South Korea and Japan have been buyers in the past, and are likely to be given priority for waivers since failing to get them would inconvenience them more.
The list of nations and organizations with which the Trump administration has started or continued to dicker seriously is astonishing: China, Russia, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Germany, Mexico, Canada, EU, NATO, UN. And all of that without a clear-cut outline of how a new Trumpian world-order should look like other than serving up meaningless slogans such as MAGA. My observation says that Trump understands only how to create world chaos and has not the foggiest notion about world order.
The 4 administrations before Trump where New World Order presidents . . So far Trump doesn’t look to be so much worse yet . He has not been president yet 2 years We have a lot of changes for the better . I’am so far happier with what Trump has done than what the last 4 administrations did .
The U.S. is only considering waivers because they were told to shove it. The world needs a lot more of telling the U.S. to shove it.
Yes, it looks like China, India and Europe will continue to import Iran oil as oil prices head north.
https://proxy.markets.businessinsider.com/cst/MarketsInsiderV2/Share/chart.aspx?instruments=300002,6,0,333&style=instrument_double_precision&period=OneYear&timezone=Eastern%20Standard%20Time.
Most of the world is afraid to tell Trump to shove it . Didn’t we just destroy Yugoslavia , Iraq , Ukraine , Libya and Syria If you listen to the neocons surrounding the Trump administration Only a fool would not be afraid . This is a very important M.O. for Trump . soon he will be able to make deals that sound more reasonable and every one will be happy .
Oil is the big export for Iran. If sanctions on oil fail, then sanctions as a strategy fail. It failed.
So now what, for those who abandoned the deal they got with successful sanctions, having no actual alternative?
They wanted war with Iran. That is where they will try to go next. “Real men go to Tehran.” It isn’t new, even if it has always been crazy. Remember, Bolton even looks crazy.
Right, FAIR has a long article on when war was the only alternative to the JCPOA. The difficulty with war with Iran is that, unlike with Iraq and the others attacked by the US, Iran is large and tough and armed, and together with allies (Iraq, Hez etc) it can put a big hurt on the US and Israel, especially on the 40,000 US troops located on the western shore of the Persian Gulf. And remember, Bolton is an advisor not a decision-maker.
Agree. In addition, the geography of Iran has defended a civilization there for thousands of years. The country itself is a natural fortress.
Further, Iran has substantial industrialization, and natural resources far beyond just oil, in a population four times the size of Iraq.
This is an entirely new challenge, not just another one like those we’ve lost already.
In general, the US has a policy of “forward basing” which puts US military installation, often with dependents, within easy rocket range of potential adversaries. This is especially true with Iran and North Korea. Forward basing discourages any attack on these adversaries.
Here’s an inviting target for Iran, the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, which provides command and control of air power throughout Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and other nations in the U.S. Air Forces Central Command region. Qatar is about 150 miles from Iran. According to media reports in June 2017, the base hosted over 11,000 U.S. and U.S.-led anti-ISIL coalition forces and over 100 operational aircraft at the base..
https://media.defense.gov/2017/Jul/05/2001773038/780/780/0/170623-F-CH060-0003.JPG
The only reason the US is considering waivers is because so many countries including the EU are considering dropping the US $ as a fiat currency. This is a desperate move to shore up the bankrupt economy of a country whose currency has the real value of toilet papter
And yet the dollar holds up better than most other currencies . which might more be the value of used toilet paper . Now days the money is just based on trust .
So many countries will still buy Iran oil, some using other currencies. “You’re going to do it anyhow, so we’ll authorize your doing it. That serves to maintain our position as rulers of the universe.”
The only reason this makes any sense at all is because of Israel. Satanyahu is the Trump whisperer when it comes to Iran. When China starts buying oil from Iran and Russia with the Petro-yuan instead of the dollar, all economic hell will break loose, waivers or no waivers. That’s what the Zionists want most: chaos, disorder, and war… always so profitable for the banksters.
A recent headline by Bloomberg:
In Big Win for Trump, U.S. Sanctions Cripple Iranian Oil Exports
Well that’s nice of gov’t-friendly Bloomberg, but let’s look at the facts.
Bloomberg correctly reports a 35% drop in exports in September compared to April, from 2.8 to 1.8 MBPD, “Iranian oil exports have plunged about 35 percent since April”, but April was a high for Iran which has averaged about 2.4. Granted, the trend is down now but that will probably change as the importing countries sort out their payment strategies and plans.
And price must be considered, relative to Iran’s dependence upon oil export income to its economy, reportedly 80% of gov’t income. Bloomberg: “The sanctions are reverberating through the global oil market, pushing
benchmark Brent oil above $80 a barrel last week. Even though Russia and
Saudi Arabia, which have cooperated closely in oil over the last two years, have offset some of the impact by boosting their own output, traders are
betting it won’t be sufficient to replace all the losses from Iran.”
So while Iran’s exports have dropped on average about 25%, oil prices have risen about 20% in the same period, thus canceling out much of the financial loss. It’s hardly been “crippling” and it probably will end up as a win for Iran.
Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, Pompeo has his Iran Action Group traveling around the world promoting Iran-hate. The Iran Action Group’s cast of characters includes a former explosives ordnance expert, Jason Shell; David Tessler, a mild-mannered sanctions expert with two tweets to his name; Michelle Giuda, who was once Newt Gingrich’s spokeswoman and was also a national gymnastics champion at the University of California at Los Angeles; and a former New York ad man, Len Khodorkovsky, whose family fled the Soviet Union when he was a child and who now coordinates Pompeo’s anti-Iran messaging campaign. Their leader is Brian Hook, a foreign policy wonk who worked for the George W. Bush adminstration and advised Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. . .here
Where is moderator Thomas Knap when I need him I have been banned from comments on Justin’s Articles on anti war .
I doubt it, but I’ll have a look.
OK, so:
People aren’t banned from commenting on articles by particular authors. They’re banned from commenting in particular parts of the site. Antiwar.com is actually administered as three separate sites (News, Original, and Blog), with three separate Disqus installations.
I banned you from the Original area of Antiwar.com 10 months ago over hate speech. I don’t keep detailed notes on such incidents and I’m not going to dig back through 10 months of deleted comments to figure out those details. Apparently it wasn’t bad enough or repetitive enough for me to come find you in and ban you from other site sections, and you’ve obviously managed to stay out of trouble over here in the News section since then, so I’ve lifted the ban in Original.
We simply must punish nations we don’t trade with for some reason or another or the world will come to an end. Since we don’t trade with Iran, all we can do is punish those who do. But it would be very inconvenient for many of our allies to do what it would take to keep the world from ending, so we’ll just give them special permission to keep doing that world-ending thing.
In other words, even our close allies are politely informing us what we can do with our silly sanctions demands: keep blowing hot air!
I am waiting for them to give a waiver to Israel
I can see India asking for a waiver but China could careless.
The difficult task is purchase power since trade is moving to such a restricted format Iran has problems buying consumer products.
Isolated Uncle Sham is showing his weak hand.