The Trump administration will extend for another month a waiver allowing the sale of Russian crude already loaded on tankers, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday.
The move is aimed at keeping more oil on global markets and tempering crude prices as the war in Iran, now nearing its third month, continues to choke off shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. But critics have blasted the waiver as allowing Russia to profit from elevated oil prices and enriching Moscow’s war machine.
The U.S. benchmark crude price was up about 2 percent on Monday to around $103 a barrel.
The general license from Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control allows any country to purchase Russian oil already on the water for another month. It extends the sanctions relief, first issued in March and renewed in April, for a third month.
“This general license will help stabilize the physical crude market and ensure oil reaches the most energy-vulnerable countries,” Bessent said in an X post. “It will also help reroute existing supply to countries most in need by reducing China’s ability to stockpile discounted oil.”
He added that Treasury would work with vulnerable nations to “provide specific licenses as needed.”
This marks the second time Bessent has re-issued the waiver after pledging to let it lapse. In April, he ruled out extending the waiver beyond its initial 30 days, but reversed course days later and issued the first extension.
Bessent defended the about-face to lawmakers in a hearing last month, saying he had been approached by “more than 10 of the most vulnerable and poorest countries in terms of energy” who asked him to extend the waiver.
“If we had not done that sanctions relief, [oil prices] might have been at $150 [a barrel], because the world became very well supplied,” Bessent said during the hearing. He insisted that Russia was making less money than it would have been if prices had risen further, and American consumers were also paying lower prices at the pump.
Bessent later told the AP he would not issue a second extension to the waiver, which expired on Saturday.
Brett Erickson, managing principal of the consultancy Obsidian Risk Advisors, said that given his justification for the first extension, Bessent did not have much choice but to extend the relief again into June.
“He effectively cited ‘humanitarian reasons’ to justify the extension — we’re now almost a full month longer into the conflict, Hormuz is still closed, and the crisis for many Asian countries has only become exponentially worse,” Erickson said. “There’s really not another option.”
Fourteen Senate Democrats urged Bessent late last month to reinstate the sanctions, calling the waiver a “mistake that President Trump must reverse immediately.” Ukraine has also strongly criticized the easing of sanctions.
Treasury allowed a separate waiver permitting the sale of Iranian oil to expire last month. It has also issued new sanctions aimed at Tehran, including on so-called “teapot” refineries in China that process Iranian crude, part of an effort Bessent has dubbed “Operation Economic Fury.”
Treasury announced a $275 million settlement Monday with India’s Adani Enterprises for allegedly importing Iranian liquefied petroleum gas under the guise of Omani and Iraqi supplies.
President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday as he returned from a trip to Beijing that he is considering lifting the sanctions on Chinese teapot refineries.
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