💰 U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says he is “jujitsuing the Iranians.”
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/2035917219776139535
This is complete nonsense, by the way: it requires you to believe that there is a huge amount of unsold Iranian oil (140 million barrels, according to Bessent) just sitting in tankers at sea waiting for buyers.
Almost by definition, when the oil is in a tanker it's because it already has a buyer 
Oil in a tanker is the shipping part of the process: it'd be absurd to ship something without a buyer, all the more given how expensive a tanker voyage is these days (~$150,000/day).
Also, the very notion that Iran would be selling oil when it couldn't access the money defies logic: why on earth would they do that? They've been selling oil almost exclusively to China precisely because China is one of the very few countries both willing and able to pay them, despite the U.S.'s banking sanctions.
And therein also lies Bessent's key contradiction: it makes zero sense to "lift sanctions on Iranian oil" and at the same time have "banking sanctions remain in place." It means you can "freely" buy the oil but not pay for it, so it's still an impossible transaction...
This, by the way, was confirmed by Iran's oil ministry who said that Bessent's statements on this subject were "a psychological game by the US Treasury Department aimed solely at ingraining hope into buyers and controlling market psychology," when the reality is that "Iran currently has virtually no oil [in tankers] at sea and no surplus to supply to international markets" (tass.com/world/2105049).
Oil in a tanker is the shipping part of the process: it'd be absurd to ship something without a buyer, all the more given how expensive a tanker voyage is these days (~$150,000/day).
Also, the very notion that Iran would be selling oil when it couldn't access the money defies logic: why on earth would they do that? They've been selling oil almost exclusively to China precisely because China is one of the very few countries both willing and able to pay them, despite the U.S.'s banking sanctions.
And therein also lies Bessent's key contradiction: it makes zero sense to "lift sanctions on Iranian oil" and at the same time have "banking sanctions remain in place." It means you can "freely" buy the oil but not pay for it, so it's still an impossible transaction...
This, by the way, was confirmed by Iran's oil ministry who said that Bessent's statements on this subject were "a psychological game by the US Treasury Department aimed solely at ingraining hope into buyers and controlling market psychology," when the reality is that "Iran currently has virtually no oil [in tankers] at sea and no surplus to supply to international markets" (tass.com/world/2105049).
posted by Satish Sharma at
09:58
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