Letters to BS: US sanctions on Iran worst form of coercive diplomacy

Importing from alternative sources is bound to lead to cost escalation, seriously impacting our macro-economic management and widening our current account deficit

Given the rally in global crude oil prices, the US administration’s stubborn refusal to extend sanction exemption to countries — including India — importing oil from Iran is indeed a bad news. The US threat that countries continuing to import oil from Iran after May 1 would be subjected to severe secondary sanctions, including being taken out of the SWIFT international banking system and a freeze on dollar transactions and the US assets, is the worst form of coercive diplomacy. Needless to mention, a bigger beneficiary of this arrangement would be the US and not India for reasons too obvious