Bessent Tells Maria Bartiromo Trump May Soon ‘Unsanction Iranian Oil’ to Drive Down Oil Prices

Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent joined Maria Bartiromo on Thursday morning to discuss the latest market turmoil from the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, which has sent gas and oil prices spiking following an Iranian attack on a key Qatari gas facility.

Bartiromo began by noting that President Donald Trump has been “very, very direct in terms of obliterating Iran’s military infrastructure, but holding back in terms of hitting the oil and gas infrastructure.”

“Yeah, and Maria, on the military, last night was the biggest night for strikes thus far in this campaign. We move into days 19 and 20. We keep escalating the military campaign. President Trump wants to have something for the Iranian people on the other side,” Bessent replied, adding:

So we are not attacking their energy infrastructure on Kharg Island, which is the nexus—90% of Iranian oil comes out of there. We did a precision strike against all the military targets on that island, and none of the energy assets were targeted. So we have allowed Iranian oil to continue out of the Gulf, where some Indian tankers have moved out and some Chinese tankers that moved out.

We, and Maria, to be clear, this is a coordinated effort. We had a “break glass” plan across the administration and Treasury. We unsanctioned Russian oil. We knew that there were about 130 million barrels on the water, and we created supply that is beyond the Strait of Hormuz. So we anticipated this.

We knew there could be a temporary—and I want to emphasize temporary—chokepoint there, and there was 130 million barrels of floating storage. In the coming days, we may unsanction the Iranian oil that’s on the water. It’s about 140 million barrels.

So, depending on how you count it, that’s 10 days to two weeks of supply that the Iranians had been pushing out. That would have all gone to China. In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days as we continue this campaign. So we have lots of levers.

We’ve got plenty more that we can do. The largest coordinated SPR release in history—400 million barrels—was approved last week, and some countries are going to do more. The U.S. could unilaterally do another SPR release to keep the price down. As you will have noted, WTI and its European counterpart Brent have substantially diverged over the past few trading sessions.

They were trading right on top of each other last week, and this is because the U.S., thanks to President Trump in his first term and the continuing efforts here, is virtually energy independent. When President Trump says our allies should join us in a coalition along the Strait of Hormuz, they’re the ones who need this oil. The U.S.—we’re an oil exporter.

As Bessent spoke on Thursday, the price of oil reached near $100 a barrel, and the U.S. markets sank further amid concerns of an energy crunch.

“Absolutely. And you’re hitting at exactly the point that I was making at the top of this interview: that you are making and walking this balance of energy stability versus keeping the pressure on Iran,” Bartiromo replied, adding:

In terms of the Treasury intervening in markets, I mean, the stock markets have been under pressure obviously from the beginning of this conflict. The Dow is down nearly 6 percent, the S&P and the Nasdaq down as oil prices move higher. And Brent, at one point this morning, was at $118 after those attacks overnight that we talked about on the key energy facilities. You’ve said no plans to intervene in markets specifically. What conditions would force Treasury to intervene?

“Well, Maria, we’re talking about two things here. I think there’s been some speculation that U.S. Treasury would intervene in the futures market, and we’re absolutely not doing that,” Bessent replied, adding:

But we are intervening in markets by creating this excess supply with oil that’s on the water. So, in essence, by the time we unsanction the floating Iranian oil, we would have intervened and we would have created about 260 million excess barrels of energy. And if you think that the temporary closure in the strait is leading to about a 10 to 14 million barrel per day deficit, then that is, depending on how you count it, approximately three weeks of oil to stabilize the market.

So that is a physical intervention. We are not going to do a financial market intervention. Maria, you get these price spikes. We got one Sunday two weeks ago. It was a big price spike then. We had the largest sell-off in history. And, you know, in my 40 years in the market, I always found, especially people who worked for me, when they lost a lot of money, they said that there was some mysterious intervention rather than bad trading. So, to be clear, we’re not intervening in the financial markets. We are supplying the physical markets.

Watch the clip above via Fox Business.

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