WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- Ten Republican senators have written to President Joe Biden telling him he is endangering U.S. national security by not enforcing Iranian oil export sanctions.
The senators, including Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz in their letter dated January 28, told Biden that a growing fleet of non-Iranian oil tankers and buyers such as China are not afraid of U.S. retaliation any longer and are trading in hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil a day.
“The vessel owners and their customers in China are taking greater risks because they believe that your administration is too weak and indecisive to punish them for their crimes,” the letter says and accuses Biden of unwillingness to enforce sanctions to keep nuclear talks alive in Vienna.
For the first time in a year, China officially reported in January that it is importing Iranian oil.
The United States imposed partial sanctions on Iran’s oil exports in 2018 when former president Donald Trump withdrew from the Obama-era nuclear agreement known as JCPOA. Full sanctions followed in May 2019, bringing Iranian shipments down.
The Republican senators charged that currently Iran was allegedly shipping well over one million barrels per day because, the boom in oil sales had refilled the country’s coffers, removed crucial American leverage over Iran.
“It is long past time to stop your dithering. You are putting U.S. national security at risk,” they said.
The Biden Administration has not officially acknowledged that Iran is exporting more oil or that it is not enforcing the sanctions vigorously. If the negotiations in Vienna succeed in restoring the JCPOA, it is expected that oil sanctions will be removed. Republicans say the talks, which started almost ten months ago, are doomed to end either in an impasse or substantial U.S. concessions.
The Biden Administration says its priority and focus is on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal and argues that Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement and its “maximum pressure” sanctions have not stopped the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program or regional influence.
Earlier in January more than 100 Republican members of Congress wrote to Biden asking him to stop the negotiations and get tough with Iran.
The ten Republican Senators urged Biden to enforce U.S. sanctions, saying, “We would also remind you that sanctions against Iran’s oil exports are mandatory and passed Congress with bipartisan majorities. You are not above the law and must stop violating it.”