Defending his decision to give temporary exemptions to eight countries, including India and China, from the ban on Iranian oil imports, US President Donald Trump has said it was done so to keep global oil prices down.
The US on Monday imposed "the toughest ever" sanctions on a defiant Iran aimed at altering the Iranian regime's "behaviour". The sanctions cover Iran's banking and energy sectors and reinstate penalties for countries and companies in Europe, Asia and elsewhere that do not halt Iranian oil imports.
However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that eight countries -- India, China, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey -- were temporarily allowed to continue buying Iranian oil as they showed "significant reduction" in oil purchase from the Persian Gulf country.
"We have the toughest sanctions ever imposed. But on oil, we want to go a little bit slow because I don't want to drive the oil prices in the world up," Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington on Monday before leaving on a campaign trail for the mid-term polls.
He, however, emphasised that his effort to keep the oil prices down has nothing to do with Iran.
When asked about his decision to give temporary exemptions to eight countries from the ban on Iranian oil imports, Trump said, "I'm not looking to be a great hero and bring it down to zero immediately. I could get the Iran oil down to zero immediately, but it would cause a shock to the market. I don't want to lift oil prices."
House Democratic Whip Steny H Hoyer said, "Rather than achieving its stated goal of eliminating Iran's oil exports altogether, the administration has issued 'exemptions' for major Iranian oil importers, allowing Iran to earn billions of dollars from oil sale."
Schiff said, "The Trump administration's unilateral re-imposition of these sanctions will also accelerate efforts to facilitate transactions through alternative financial channels that are not reachable by the US sanctions and into which we will have limited visibility."
Democratic Senator Tom Udall, who is also a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, "Led by people like John Bolton, who believe that we should bomb Iran, I fear the Trump administration is marching toward another catastrophic war in the Middle East."
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