Trade flare-up
President Trump’s tough talk on trade with China is looming over U.S. efforts to become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
TEHRAN, IRAN — Iran issued a new warning over Mideast oil supplies as the United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday it could increase its own production, the latest remarks to follow President Donald Trump’s demand for lower global energy prices.
The comments by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the unexpected announcement by the UAE’s oil-rich capital Abu Dhabi came as U.S. benchmark crude traded around $75 a barrel.
A recent decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase the cartel’s own production by 1 million barrels a day has yet to tamp down prices. That’s led to higher prices at gasoline pumps in the United States as it heads toward midterm elections for Congress.
Speaking to Iranian expatriates Monday night in Switzerland, where he was on an official visit, Rouhani took aim at America. The U.S. pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in May and initially said it wanted allies to stop buying Iranian crude entirely. The State Department said Monday it would examine waivers on a “case-by-case basis” as it reimposes sanctions.
“The main goal of the United States by imposing sanctions is to put pressure on people, but they claim that they want to put pressure on the Iranian government,” Rouhani’s website quoted him as saying. “But when they apply sanctions on people’s basic needs like medicine, who will be put under pressure?”
Rouhani added that if Iran’s crude oil exports were threatened, the rest of the Mideast’s would be as well.
“It seems they do not understand what they are saying when they say Iran will not be allowed to export even a single drop of oil,” Rouhani said in remarks aired by Iranian state television. “All right, if you can do such a thing, do it and see the result!”
Was that a threat of naval conflict?
Rouhani did not elaborate, but Iran long has asserted it could shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow body of water that separates the Persian Gulf from the wider world. A third of all oil traded by sea passes through the strait and the U.S. Navy regularly has direct, tense encounters with Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard there. The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which patrols the region, has said it has not seen any “unsafe and unprofessional” actions by Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf since August 2017. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday over Rouhani’s remarks.