Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is pressing for Iranian crude oil relief as mounting global inflation fears add urgency to the administration’s response to the oil price crisis, he revealed Thursday. Bessent said the administration is considering temporarily lifting sanctions on approximately 140 million barrels of Iranian crude stranded on tankers, to prevent sustained prices above $100 per barrel from feeding inflationary spirals in economies already struggling with elevated price levels.
The inflation dimension of the Hormuz crisis has been growing since Iran’s blockade began removing between 10 and 14 million barrels of daily supply from global markets nearly two weeks ago. In economies where inflation has only recently been brought under control, the sustained energy price surge threatens to reignite inflationary pressures that monetary authorities have spent years working to suppress.
Bessent confirmed the Iranian crude on tankers, originally destined for Chinese ports, as a supply resource that could help contain the inflation risk. A targeted temporary waiver could redirect approximately 140 million barrels to global buyers, providing roughly two weeks of price relief during the US campaign to resolve the Hormuz crisis, limiting the extent of energy price transmission into broader inflation indices.
The Treasury has previously acted to contain inflation through comparable supply measures, including a waiver for Russian oil that added approximately 130 million barrels to world supply. An additional unilateral US Strategic Petroleum Reserve release beyond the G7’s 400 million barrel commitment is also being planned, while the administration has maintained its firm opposition to financial market intervention.
Economists and policy analysts raised important caveats about the inflation containment argument. They noted that while energy price relief would reduce inflationary pressure in the short term, enabling Iranian oil revenues to achieve that relief would provide the Tehran regime with funds for military activities and proxy support. Critics argued that inflation containment through Iranian oil sales creates a different kind of economic risk — one tied to the prolongation of a geopolitical conflict that could generate its own inflationary consequences through disrupted trade, elevated insurance costs, and persistent energy market uncertainty.