Editorial illustration
In a move that will have the establishment clutching their pearls and the talking heads spinning themselves dizzy, the Trump administration announced Thursday that it is temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil currently stranded at sea. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the decision exactly right — this is about protecting American families from the economic fallout of Iran’s reckless aggression, not about doing Moscow any favors.
The math here is simple. Since the United States and Israel launched their campaign against Iran’s terror regime, the mullahs have responded by threatening the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which roughly twenty percent of the world’s oil supply passes every single day. Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, the hardline son who inherited his father’s hatred of the West, vowed Thursday to keep that chokepoint sealed as a “tool to pressure the enemy.” The result has been predictable and painful. Oil surged past one hundred dollars a barrel on Thursday, and gas prices at the pump jumped nearly thirty cents in just one week to a national average of $3.59 per gallon. Working Americans are the ones who pay that bill, not the politicians in Washington or the pundits on cable news.
So what did President Trump do? He did what leaders do — he acted. An estimated 124 million barrels of Russian oil are currently floating at sea with nowhere to go, enough to cover five or six days of global supply. The temporary authorization, which runs through April 11, allows countries to purchase that stranded crude. Bessent was careful to note this is a “narrowly tailored, short-term measure” that applies only to oil already in transit. Russia won’t see significant financial benefit because the Kremlin collects the bulk of its energy revenue from taxes at the point of extraction, not from the sale price on the open water.
The broader picture here is one the mainstream media will refuse to tell honestly. Trump’s pro-energy policies have driven American oil and gas production to record levels. The temporary price spike is exactly that — temporary — a short-term disruption that comes with the territory when you’re dismantling a terror regime that has menaced the Middle East and funded attacks against Americans for over four decades. Iran has attacked at least seven ships in the Persian Gulf since Wednesday alone. That is the behavior of a cornered and desperate regime, and the world is better off with it brought to heel.
Is the sanctions relief a perfect solution? No, and nobody is pretending it is. But it is a pragmatic one, rooted in the understanding that American energy independence doesn’t mean American indifference to global supply shocks that hit our allies and our own wallets. The temporary nature of the measure — barely a month — signals that the administration expects the Iran situation to evolve quickly. In the meantime, hardworking Americans deserve a president who will use every tool available to keep their costs down while simultaneously confronting evil abroad. That is exactly what is happening, whether the establishment likes it or not.
Providence watches over the bold.
About The Author
