US to end sanction waivers for countries importing Iranian oil News
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US to end sanction waivers for countries importing Iranian oil

The White House announced Monday that US President Donald Trump will not reissue Significant Reduction Exceptions (SREs) when they expire in early May in an effort deny Iran’s principal source of revenue and bring its oil exports to zero.

The SRE waivers allowed eight economies to purchase Iranian oil without facing US sanctions. However, by canceling the waivers, Washington hopes to deplete exports of Iranian oil in order to press Iran to curtail its nuclear program and disrupt its terror network.

The Trump Administration and our allies are determined to sustain and expand the maximum economic pressure campaign against Iran to end the regime’s destabilizing activity threatening the United States, our partners and allies, and security in the Middle East.

The White House statement reiterated that the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are committed to ensuring that global oil markets remain adequately supplied. “We have agreed to take timely action to assure that global demand is met as all Iranian oil is removed from the market.”

The eight governments who benefited from the SREs are China, India, Japan, Turkey, Italy, Greece, South Korea and Taiwan. The US has no plans to give any grace period beyond May 1 for countries to end Iranian oil imports.

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