March 19 (UPI) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that the United States may lift sanctions on Iranian oil already in transit to slow rising gas prices during the war in Iran.
Bessent told Fox Business that about 140 million barrels of oil would be released.
“That’s about 10 days to two weeks of supply that the Iranians had been pushing out that would have all gone to China,” he said. “In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days as we continue this campaign.”
About 20% of the world’s oil normally passes through the Strait of Hormuz, but oil can’t pass safely through the strait while the attacks against Iran continue.
The average U.S. gas price rose Wednesday to 92 cents per gallon over a month ago, AAA said.
Bessent and other administration officials deny that they didn’t plan for the closure of the passage.
“We anticipated this,” Bessent told Fox. “We knew that there could be a temporary — and I want to emphasize temporary — chokepoint there.”
“So, we have lots of levers, we’ve got plenty more that we can do,” Bessent said. “Some countries are going to do more, the U.S. could unilaterally do another SPR [strategic petroleum reserve] release to keep the price down.”
The White House discussed adding up to 100 million more barrels to the pledge last week, a person familiar with the plan told Politico.
“Some military advisers are concerned [about] draining so much and are pushing for more like 50 million barrels on the concern that further destruction of oil and gas infrastructure in the [Middle East] region could leave the country vulnerable from a reserve standpoint,” the person said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Energy, which controls the SPR, said in a statement after Bessent’s comments that there are no plans for another release.
Bessent pleaded with American allies to help secure the strait.
“They’re the ones who need this oil,” he said. “The U.S., we’re an oil exporter.”
Trump has been switching between calling for their help and saying on Truth Social that, “WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE.”
Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., criticized the potential move on Thursday.
“Trump is actively putting more money into the pockets of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Iranian regime, but taking away money from American families with higher gas and grocery prices,” he wrote on X. “What an absolute mess.”
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