Trump Temporarily Eases Russian Oil Sanctions

Washington just handed Moscow a 30-day ticket to cash in on oil stuck at sea. The Trump administration eased sanctions Thursday to let an estimated 128 million barrels of Russian crude already loaded on previously blacklisted tankers be sold worldwide, a move officials say is aimed at cooling surging energy prices driven by the US war on Iran and the effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, the Washington Post reports.

• In a post on X, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent downplayed the benefit to Russia, which is already making an estimated $150 million a day from higher sales since the start of the war. "This narrowly tailored, short-term measure applies only to oil already in transit and will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government, which derives the majority of its energy revenue from taxes assessed at the point of extraction," Bessent said.

Analysts say the move could also legitimize, for now, the murky "shadow fleet" of older, often uninsured sanctions-busting tankers linked to both Russia and Iran. Senate Democrats, who had already blasted a narrower sanctions carve-out for sales to India, accuse President Trump of strengthening Vladimir Putin's war chest for Ukraine. "This just underscores how Russia is the biggest winner in this conflict," Brett Erickson at the Obsidian Risk Advisors consultancy tells the Post. "It shows we were really not prepared for this war. We underestimated the length the Iranians were willing to go with the Strait of Hormuz."

Analysts say the move will only have a modest effect on oil prices, which have surged to around $100 a barrel despite plans for a massive release from strategic stockpiles. "Of course any supply helps, but this is a smaller help than it looks," Robert Rennie, head of commodity research at Westpac Banking Corp., tells Bloomberg. He estimates that around a third of Russian oil currently on the water will end up in storage in China. "We are only really talking about replacing maybe four or five days of lost Gulf exports," Rennie says. Sure, it helps, but it is no panacea."