US Pushing Nations to Cut Iran Oil Imports To Zero by November
Local Editor
The United States is pushing foreign countries to cut their oil imports from Iran to zero by November, a senior State Department official said Tuesday, as the Trump administration escalates its bid to pressure Iran after pulling out of the nuclear deal.
The price of US crude jumped to more than $70 per barrel for the first time since May on the news that countries were expected to completely eliminate their imports, rather than making a "significant" reduction.
Last month, US President Donald Trump announced that his country was leaving the 2015 deal, in which sanctions on Iran - including its energy sector - were eased in exchange for Tehran agreeing to roll back its nuclear program.
Trump's administration said the oil sanctions would be going back into effect after a six-month grace period that expires on November 4.
At the time, the Treasury Department issued public guidance suggesting that countries needed to make a "significant reduction" in their imports, or else they would be subject to separate US sanctions prohibiting all transactions between their central banks and Iran's central bank.
But the official said that Trump administration officials have been visiting European and Asian countries to say that the US expects their imports to be zeroed out by the time the grace period ends.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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