On Nov. 4, U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports will go back into force after they were suspended following the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Less than a month before that deadline, Iran’s oil sales are already tanking. The United States would like to see them fall further. In July, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid down a marker when he spoke at an event for Iranian dissidents. “Our focus is to work with countries importing Iranian crude oil to get imports as close to zero as possible by November 4th,” he said, before repeating “zero” for emphasis.
The problem with the “maximum pressure” campaign is that it is running headlong into another of U.S. President Donald Trump’s objectives: keeping gasoline prices low. After sharp increases in oil prices in May and June, and then again in September, Trump took to Twitter multiple times to shout at OPEC. He repeated the same complaints at the United Nations in New York last month. “OPEC and OPEC nations are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don’t like it,” he said in his address. “Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good.” His remarks came just as Brent crude prices hit a nearly four-year high at more than $80 per barrel.