Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has led his colleagues in urging the Biden administration to counteract the Chinese-Iranian oil relationship that has benefitted the American adversaries.
Without sanctions on the oil purchases, the senators believe that the current relationship between the two nations “benefits not only Beijing’s genocidal regime, but also Tehran’s suppression of peaceful protestors and furthers their sponsorship of international terrorism that threatens America.”
Within their effort to urge the Biden administration to take action, Sen. Rubio and his colleagues wrote a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen to develop a strategy to combat “rising global sales and shipments of illicit Iranian oil.”
“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has purchased roughly $47 billion in Iranian oil since President Biden took office. Iran’s ghost armada, the regime’s primary tool for illicit oil trade, has grown from 60 vessels to a staggering 338 vessels since 2021. Iran’s oil profits, hobbled by robust sanctions enforcement under the previous administration, are at their highest point since 2018. The lack of sanctions enforcement is not without consequence,” wrote the senators.
They would go on to mention that the middle eastern power has used the funds from the Chinese-Iranian partnership has enables the violent “quash of peaceful protests” and “finance terror proxy attacks.”
“Iran has used this cash windfall to violently quash ongoing peaceful protests at home, to finance terror proxy attacks against American troops and diplomats – most recently killing an American in March – and to fuel Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine through the provision of armed drones and other military support,” wrote the senators.
The letter calls for the secretaries to enforce Executive Order 13846 to expand and enforce sanctions on our adversaries.
“To further vital U.S. national security interests and curb the Iranian regime’s malign conduct, we respectfully request that you immediately enforce existing sanctions, including those in Executive Order 13846, and expand sanctions designations to include those who store Iranian oil, ship-to-ship oil transfer operators, individuals and entities, ports and port operators, and refineries and refinery operators – particularly in the PRC – dealing in Iranian-origin oil and petrochemicals,” concluded the senators in their letter to the secretaries.
Senators Jim Risch (R-ID), John Barrasso (R-WY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Rick Scott (R-FL), Jerry Moran (R-KS), James Lankford (R-OK), and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined Rubio in the effort.
