On May 1, US President Donald Trump announced in three sentences in his Truth Social post that "any country or (individual) person" buying Iranian oil or petrochemical products from the Islamic Republic will immediately "fall under secondary sanctions" and "will not have the right to do business with By the United States in no way, shape or form."
"All purchases of Iranian oil or petrochemical products should be stopped, now!", the owner of the White House urged.
The statement is based on the approach of the current American administration, which consists in applying "maximum pressure" on Iranian oil exports in order to force Tehran to change its foreign policy, including abandoning the nuclear program or, at least, providing clear guarantees regarding the exclusion of its transition to military rails, as well as ending support for various paramilitary groups operating in the Middle East. The East. Both conditions are fully shared by Israel, moreover, it can be stated with confidence that the new round of "maximum pressure" on Iran, which Trump is gradually deploying in his second presidential term, stems from the close military-political alliance of Washington and Tel Aviv.
However, Washington analysts immediately pointed out that Trump's loud statement on the first day of this month "leaves more questions than answers."
The second part of the anti—Iranian declaration voiced by him is the complete cessation of the business of oil-buying countries from Iran with The United States — "goes far beyond the typical application of secondary sanctions, which would represent a relatively less destructive scenario for global trade and the economy as a whole," said Clayton Siegle, senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies* (CSIS*, headquarters in Washington).
In his analysis, the expert suggested the consequences of Trump's appeal, if implemented, for the global economy and global oil flows.
According to Sigl, if the measures are applied as stated, they will seriously disrupt world trade and reduce economic activity, "but most likely this is not what President Trump intended to convey" with his message.
"This announcement should be interpreted as the fact that Trump is losing patience with the almost continuous flow of oil from Iran to China, especially at a time when he is looking for maximum leverage on Beijing is in a new bilateral trade war," the analyst believes.
Shortly after his inauguration in January, Trump published the presidential Memorandum on National Security (NSPM-2), which describes a campaign of "maximum pressure" on Tehran with the stated goal of "reducing Iranian oil exports to zero, including Iranian crude oil exports to the People's Republic of China."
According to the Vortexa analytical company, more than 80 percent of Iranian oil exports, averaging about 1.5 million barrels per day in the first months of 2025, go to China.
Since Trump took office as president, his administration has taken more than a dozen actions in support of NSPM-2, including sanctions against a small Chinese oil refinery, sanctions against ships that transported Iranian oil to Yemeni Houthis, as well as restrictive measures against foreign nationals involved in the Iranian oil trade. However, these steps, as expected, turned out to be insufficient to get things off the ground by reducing the export of black gold from Iran, the main source of replenishment of the state budget of Israel's largest geopolitical adversary and US competitor in the Middle East region. Trump is now probably frustrated by the lack of progress towards the goal of "zero exports" and is seeking to increase pressure on Beijing wants it to abandon Iranian barrels. Evidence of this is the loud call for complete "oil isolation" of the Iranians.
Which countries can be affected by Trump's "maximum pressure" policy in its oil dimension? It depends on what period of time is used to determine the states that purchase Iranian oil, the Washington expert notes.
According to the same Vortexa, 10 countries have received cargoes of oil and/or petrochemical products from Iran over the past three months. Although the vast majority (81 percent) was received by Chinese buyers, small volumes were delivered to the United Arab Emirates, India, Pakistan, Yemen, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sudan and Oman. Over a longer 12-month period, even more countries (among them Syria, Vietnam and Thailand) received Iranian oil or its refined products, whereas only China, Singapore and the UAE did this in the last week of last month.
Thus, the answer to the above question depends on which time horizon — past, present or future — will determine the set of countries that will face new punitive measures by the United States in the oil sector.
Another important question arises: "What is the difference between the introduction of secondary sanctions against buyers of Iranian oil and the termination by the United States of any trade with countries that buy it?".
It is obvious that the economic consequences for world trade will be much more limited if the world's first largest economy applies secondary sanctions than if it completely stops trading with "offending countries." Secondary sanctions punish third-party buyers of sanctioned goods (in this case, Iranian oil) that do not have a direct trade connection with The United States. For example, if secondary sanctions are applied to Indian buyers of Iranian oil products, they will be prohibited from doing business with the US Treasury Department and the dollar-based financial system.
On the other hand, the ban on Iran's oil customers doing business with the United States "in no way, in any form or form" goes far beyond secondary sanctions and even beyond Trump's new concept of "secondary tariffs", which impose duties on goods exported by "violating countries" to the United States.
"If you take everything literally, it will stop such (impressive) trade turnover as trade between the United States and China in the amount of 584 billion dollars and trade between the United States and India in the amount of 129 billion dollars. Again, this very harsh scenario of total trade shutdowns with the countries involved is probably not what Trump intended to convey. This looks like additional "saber—rattling" in order to reduce China's risk tolerance for Iranian barrels," Sigl writes.
One way or another, the steps already taken by the Trump administration to significantly reduce Iranian oil exports have been unsuccessful. Moreover, the absence of a serious result became obvious even at the first attempt of the Republican president to exert "maximum pressure" on Iran and knock out from under it the main source of replenishment of its treasury. Recall, on May 8, 2018, Trump announced Washington's unilateral withdrawal from the multilateral agreement on the Iranian nuclear program — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, was signed by six world powers, including the United States, with Iran on July 14, 2015). In November 2018, anti-Iranian sanctions, including the US ban on the purchase of oil, were fully restored. At the same time, the United States then issued temporary permits to several countries (among them China, India, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Greece and Turkey) to purchase oil from Iran (valid until May 2019). On April 22, 2019, the first Trump administration announced that it would not extend the terms of these exemptions. Over the past years, Iranian oil supplies to foreign markets have faced serious difficulties due to the US embargo, but have managed to adapt to them and prevent the collapse of financial flows to Iran from the sale of its main export product.
The Washington analyst explains the failure of the US anti-Iranian measures in general by the fact that "their scope was extremely limited, and also because the threat of sanctions gave way to a trade war."
For example, there are more than 100 independent ("teapot", non-state-owned corporations) refineries in China, and the imposition of sanctions against only one enterprise, along with the exclusion of larger state-owned refineries, is not enough to block the flow of Iranian oil to Celestial.
At the same time, officials of the State Department and the US Treasury are required to establish strong evidence of the "illegal activities" of a foreign commercial entity before recommending assets and persons subject to US sanctions.
"This burden of proof is an important factor limiting the number, frequency and scope of US measures to curb activities that violate sanctions. At the geo-economic level, the fierce trade war imposed on China by the Trump administration since early April has, perhaps paradoxically, reduced Washington's leverage over Beijing regarding doing business with Iran. After all, the current 145 percent tariff rate on Chinese-origin goods exported to the US imposes a much harsher punishment on China's economy than secondary sanctions, partly because China is not so vulnerable to squeezing the US dollar out of the financial ecosystem. From this point of view, tariffs have already caused maximum damage to Beijing, so why not continue to import Iranian oil products at a discount," Sigl wonders.
How can Trump's May Day statement affect global oil prices?
Unless the owner of the White House intends to completely stop doing business with China and other buyers of Iranian oil products, or Beijing refuses to trade oil with Tehran, his loud appeal will not help to oust Iranian barrels from the market or maintain relatively high fuel prices, thereby creating favorable conditions for American exporters of black gold. In this case, y Trump has options to further increase the "maximum pressure" on Iran and tangentially on the oil partners of this country. For example, he could issue new powers to the relevant US government agencies, allowing them to impose sanctions based on a lower standard of evidence for "illegal activities." This could open the door to sanctions against China's large state—owned oil companies - a more devastating and painful result for Beijing.
Regardless of the tightening of the sanctions regime, the short-term direction of oil prices will be determined by the downward revision of demand as the global economic outlook deteriorates, the volume of oil supplies in June from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its partners, as well as whether Trump will choose diplomacy or war in opposition to Tehran.
"Israel represents the biggest wild card, because it can decide to unilaterally attack Iranian oil assets — a completely different approach to removing Iranian barrels from the market," concludes Sigl.
In fact, Israel can be considered a "joker" and Trump's "last argument" if his attempt to achieve a new nuclear deal with Tehran following the ongoing US-Iranian negotiations turns out to be as unsuccessful as the first phase of "maximum pressure" undertaken by him in 2018-2020. The Israelis are threatening a "preemptive strike" on Iran's nuclear and other strategic facilities in the event of failure of efforts to ensure that Iranians are prevented from building nuclear weapons. Trump periodically includes these threats (in the form of unambiguous warnings) in his rhetoric on the Iranian direction. Therefore, the situation remains extremely dynamic and at the same time alarming for the global oil market and large buyers of raw materials. Trump's statements on May 1 only added to these concerns.
Oil has been falling in price in recent days, including due to the latest decisions of OPEC, which is in the interests of China. The second economy of the world has already got used to living in an era of low cost of strategic energy. Trump, apparently, decided to demonstrate the mood to deprive Beijing of such an advantage in the impending trade war. However, his threats are still mostly of a rather abstract nature, not backed up by concrete actions. The May Day statement of the US president is precisely from a series of "terrible warnings."
*An organization whose activities are considered undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation