The move would breach a vow to bring Iran’s oil exports to zero.
The State Department is seriously considering using an Obama-era loophole to allow China to import oil from Iran, violating the Trump administration’s pledge to bring Iranian oil exports to zero.
Only last week, the senior State Department official handling Iran said the U.S. would “sanction any imports of Iranian crude oil.”
But according to three U.S. officials, the department’s Iran czar, Brian Hook, and his team of negotiators have discussed granting China a waiver to a 2012 law intended to kneecap the Iranian oil industry. The alternative is allowing China, which recently welcomed a shipment of approximately a million barrels of Iranian oil, openly to defy U.S. sanctions.
The Trump team has kept the details of its deliberations closely held as news reports of the Chinese oil imports have proliferated in recent days — and hawks on Capitol Hill have begun to ask questions. It is the latest in a series of dust-ups between the administration and Congress on an Iran policy that has often appeared inconsistent, careening between threats of military action and offers to talk with Iranian leaders.
The 2012 Iran Freedom and Counterproliferation Act targeted the Iranian shipping, shipbuilding and energy sectors, requiring states or companies that wish to import Iranian oil and conduct business with the U.S. to obtain waivers from the U.S. government. A separate law targeted purchases, rather than imports of that oil.
Officials say the State Department is discussing an arrangement that would allow China to import Iranian oil as payment in kind for sizable investments of the Chinese oil company Sinopec in an Iranian oil field — and administration officials have offered to issue a waiver for the payback oil in official correspondence between the State Department and Sinopec, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The workaround would serve dual purposes, allowing cash-strapped Tehran to pay off a debt, and let China continue to import Iranian crude as it continues tense trade negotiations with American officials.
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The State Department is seriously considering a workaround that would allow China to import Iranian oil https://t.co/KPS5ZOUxKd
— POLITICO (@politico) July 3, 2019
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