The United States on Monday reinforced its "maximum pressure" campaign to bend Iran, their number one enemy in the Middle East, by announcing sanctions against any country that would continue to buy Iranian oil, at the risk of tensions. with several allies. President Donald Trump has decided to end on May 2 the derogations that still allowed eight countries (China, India, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Italy and Greece) to import Iranian crude, to "carry zero exports "and" deprive the regime of its main source of income, "announced the White House.
This measure, which caused a sharp rise in oil prices, promises to be particularly difficult for Beijing, engaged in complex trade negotiations with the Trump administration, and for New Delhi, strategic ally of the United States and the world's third largest importer. oil, about a tenth of which comes from Iran. "If you do not respect that, there will be sanctions," warned the head of the US diplomacy, Mike Pompeo.
"We will not accept unilateral sanctions"
Turkey and North Korea, other allies of Washington, strongly deplored the US decision. "We will not accept unilateral sanctions and constraints on how we manage our relations with our neighbors," said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose country is already having a very tense relationship with the US administration. . South Korean diplomacy has promised to continue until the end "to do everything possible" to obtain a "renewal of the exemption".
After withdrawing nearly a year ago from the 2015 international agreement to prevent Tehran from acquiring the atomic bomb, which Donald Trump deemed too lax, Washington reinstated tough economic sanctions against the Republic in November. Islamic. Above all, he accompanied his decision with the threat of punitive measures against countries that would still continue to trade with Iran.
US sanctions are "illegal in principle," the Iranian government reaffirmed on Monday. The ban on buying Iranian oil, whose sales, according to Washington, is 40% of the regime's revenue, was the main one of these sanctions, which claim to be "the strongest in history". The United States, however, had granted exemptions for six months, saying that the world market could not support a too sudden cancellation of sales of Iranian crude.
Riyadh will "stabilize" the market
On Monday, Donald Trump promised that Saudi Arabia and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, like the United Arab Emirates, would "more than compensate" for the drop in supply. The Saudi government immediately said it was ready to "stabilize" the market. According to S & P Global Platts, Iran exported an average of 1.7 million barrels per day in March, of which nearly 628,000 to China and more than 357,000 to India.
The US decision comes two weeks after another symbolic announcement: the inscription of the Guardians of the Revolution, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, on the US black list of "terrorist organizations". The "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran aims, according to Washington, to put an end to Tehran's "destabilizing activities" in the Middle East, notably in Lebanon via the Shiite Hezbollah movement, in Yemen through the Houthi rebels and in Syria by its support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad.