US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will take a decision in the next few days on whether to lift sanctions on Chinese oil companies buying Iranian oil.
Earlier this year, Washington considered cutting off revenue streams for Iran “Maximum Pressure” campaign Imposed by Trump just weeks before the start of the war with Iran.
In April, the US sanctioned several independent refineries, known as “teapots”, that were found to be importing Iranian oil, including China’s largest, the Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery.
Iranian crude oil is typically transported to Chinese Teapot refineries using “shadow fleets” of tankers, which use deceptive tactics such as disabling tracking systems and deregistering to avoid detection.
Many shipments involve multiple ship-to-ship transfers, sometimes to obscure their origin, using scrapped ships that are no longer in operation, often in the Persian Gulf or the Strait of Malacca.
Following the president’s visit to China, Trump was asked Friday if he would consider lifting sanctions.
“Well, we talked about it and I’m going to make a decision in the next few days,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
The US and China made progress in strengthening bilateral ties during Trump’s closely watched visit. The two world leaders discussed every issue from Iran war to trade. However, chip export controls were notably left out of the talks, while US access to critical and rare earth minerals remains uncertain.
Trump told reporters on Friday that when asked whether the United States would defend Taiwan if China attacked it, he declined to answer directly to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
He also expressed disappointment with Iran over progress toward a peace agreement. The president said the U.S. stands for Iran suspending its nuclear program for 20 years, but that commitment requires a “level of guarantees.”
— CNBC’s Lim Hui Jie helped contribute to this report.