Iran threatens to block all Middle East oil. Trump weighs Russia sanctions relief

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a U.S. government stockpile of crude oil held in underground salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas. Congress created it in 1975 after the 1973 Arab oil embargo left American consumers waiting in gas lines for hours — a direct response to the danger of being dependent on foreign oil with no emergency buffer.

At full capacity the SPR holds about 714 million barrels. By early 2026, partial Biden-era drawdowns used to manage price spikes after Russia's invasion of Ukraine had reduced the reserve significantly, and it hadn't been fully replenished. Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed on March 9 that the administration was evaluating a release, framing it as one of several tools available to stabilize prices if Iran followed through on its closure threat. A release requires no congressional approval — it's a unilateral executive decision under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, one of the few energy tools a president can deploy immediately without a vote. EIA

The Russia angle was the most politically combustible dimension of the energy crisis. Since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration — with the EU and G7 — had built a sanctions architecture specifically designed to cap Russian oil revenue and limit Moscow's ability to fund its war. Relaxing those sanctions to offset Iranian supply losses would directly benefit the same government that, as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse detailed on the Senate floor on March 7, was simultaneously feeding Iran satellite targeting data on U.S. troops and ships.

Trump spoke with Putin on March 9. Three Reuters sources confirmed that Russia oil sanctions relief came up in the call, with a possible announcement expected within days. India had recently agreed to stop buying Russian oil as part of a bilateral trade deal with Washington — a significant diplomatic concession that a sanctions reversal would immediately undercut. The contradiction was stark: the administration was considering rewarding Moscow economically at the precise moment Russia was helping Iran kill American service members. Iran International

Trump's warning to Israel on March 10 — delivered privately through diplomatic channels and later confirmed by administration officials — was to avoid striking Iranian oil and energy infrastructure. The warning reflected the administration's own internal assessment of what officials were calling a 'doomsday scenario': Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities combined with an IRGC Hormuz closure producing a simultaneous supply shock that would hit every oil-importing nation at once.

Gas prices in the U.S. had already risen 14 percent in the war's first week. Oil had climbed toward $120 a barrel before Trump's Sunday CBS interview — in which he said the war was 'very complete, pretty much' — sent prices back down to $86. The market was tracking his statements in real time, which explained why aides later said his contradictory public messaging about the war's duration was partly deliberate: managing energy markets, not just public opinion.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait — whose own export revenues would be devastated by a Hormuz closure — had refused to allow the U.S. to use their bases for Iran strikes. That refusal gave the Gulf states a degree of leverage over American military operations they hadn't previously exercised, and their economic interests were now aligned with keeping the strait open regardless of which side they nominally supported. Al Jazeera Euronews

Pakistan's decision to deploy warships to escort its own merchant vessels through the strait captured something the official Washington debate was missing: the countries that couldn't rely on U.S. naval protection were already making independent arrangements.

The United States Navy guarantees the security of the global oil transit system — and oil is priced in U.S. dollars specifically because of that guarantee. The petrodollar relationship isn't just an economic convenience; it's what makes the dollar the world's reserve currency and gives Washington the ability to impose sanctions that actually hurt. Every time a country builds an alternative arrangement — its own escorts, its own bilateral agreements, its own non-dollar payment systems — it's a small erosion of the foundation that makes American financial power work.

The Iran war was putting that system under its most direct test in decades. Pakistan wasn't an adversary. It was simply a country doing the math. EIA Al Jazeera