Iran accused President Trump of weaponizing oil after the White House said it would stop granting waivers for countries that import oil from the Islamic Republic, a report said Tuesday.
”America has made a bad mistake by politicizing oil and using it as a weapon in the fragile state of the market,” Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh told lawmakers, state-run media reported, according to Reuters.
”With all our power, we will work toward breaking America’s sanctions,” he said.
The Trump administration announced Monday it would not renew the sanction waivers when they expire May 2 in an effort to increase economic pressure on Iran and reduce the country’s oil exports to zero.
Countries that continue to import oil from Iran would face sanctions from the US.
To ensure that the global oil market won’t be disrupted by the action, the US said, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to increase production.
But Zanganeh warned that might not be enough to keep prices stable.
“You can’t be assured that enough oil can be produced to meet demand,” he said. “Because some regional countries announce production capacities higher than their real levels.”
The Trump administration reimposed sanctions on Iran after withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal that President Barack Obama brokered with Tehran and a number of countries, including Britain, France, China and Russia.
It granted waivers to some countries to continue to buy oil while they set up alternate energy sources.