Just two days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States would not extend a sanctions exemption on the sale of some Russian oil, the Treasury Department did just that on Friday, issuing one for about a month.
The renewed license will be in effect until May 16 and supersede the sanctions waiver on Russia that expired on April 11.
The Trump administration has loosened restrictions on Russian oil exports since the war in the Middle East began to rattle energy markets in March. The goal was to lower oil prices by allowing countries to legally purchase hundreds of millions of barrels of crude oil that the United States had blacklisted.
Mr. Bessent said at a White House briefing on Wednesday that the federal government would not renew the sanctions exemption on Russian oil that was stranded at sea, as well as one on Iranian oil that is set to expire on Sunday.
“That was oil that was on the water prior to March 11,” he said, referring to when the United States first lifted sanctions on Russian oil. “So all of that has been used.”
The last-minute renewal of Russia’s sanctions exemption came as Iran announced earlier on Friday that the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil, was completely open to all commercial ships.
President Trump celebrated the move on social media, claiming that “Hormuz Strait situation is over” and that Iran had agreed to never close the waterway again.
Iran made no such commitment. Its foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, only went so far as to say that the waterway would be open “for the remaining period of cease-fire.” The cease-fire between the United States and Iran is set to expire next week with American and Iranian negotiators expected to meet for another round of peace talks in Pakistan soon.
Mr. Trump has downplayed the economic repercussions of the conflict and brushed aside soaring oil and gas prices since the start of the war on Feb. 28. The price of regular gasoline in the United States jumped 25 percent from February to March, the highest monthly percentage increase on record. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, has failed to mellow despite the release of a record amount of oil from countries’ strategic reserves.
While news of the strait reopening prompted a sharp decline in oil prices on Friday, the future of the waterway remained murky. Iran and the United States were still at odds over the U.S. military’s blockade of Iranian ports. Mr. Araghchi, who is also Iran’s top negotiator, said the country would close the strait again if the U.S. military continued its blockade of Iranian ports.
Ashley Ahn covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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