TESTIMONY: When Trump Chose Iranian Oil Over Russian Oil — and Changed the World's Rules

June 17, 2026: two simultaneous decisions that stunned the markets

I have covered energy geopolitics long enough to recognize a historic turning point when it arrives. June 17, 2026 was one. That day, two events occurred simultaneously — and their conjunction shifted the global balance of power on oil markets in a way few analysts had anticipated. On one side, Washington allowed the American waiver on Russian oil exports to expire without renewal — the exemption mechanism that had allowed buyers around the world to continue purchasing Russian crude despite sanctions. On the other, the Strait of Hormuz reopened its waters — 20% of global oil supplies put back into circulation — thanks to the Iran-United States Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed the same day.

This was not a coincidence. It was a deliberate strategic pivot by the Trump administration. By letting the Russian waiver die and simultaneously reopening the Iranian tap, Donald Trump was sending a clear message to his G7 allies: "We can do this — press Russia — because the oil is flowing from Iran." A short sentence. A geopolitical and economic calculation of remarkable brutality. Here is what I understood from that moment, and why it deserves to be told without detours.

Why this moment is different from previous American energy policy reversals

The United States has used energy as a geopolitical lever before. The lifting of restrictions on American oil exports in 2015, Obama-era energy independence policy, the Iranian sanctions of 2018 under Trump — each of these moments temporarily reconfigured markets. But the June 17, 2026 pivot is different in that it is simultaneously offensive and defensive: it opens one tap (Iranian) while closing another (Russian). This is deliberate global energy engineering, not a simple reaction to a crisis.

What makes this pivot historic is also its speed. In less than 72 hours, global oil markets had to recalculate their scenarios. Crude traders in London, New York, and Singapore adjusted their positions. Energy ministers in buyer countries began evaluating their options. And Moscow's strategists had to acknowledge that their oil revenue — the financial pillar of the war in Ukraine — had just lost a layer of protection they had assumed permanent.

I testify here not as someone physically present at any of these locations — I was neither in Geneva, nor Washington, nor Tehran. I testify as an analyst who followed the unfolding of June 17 hour by hour, attempting to understand what the official communiqués left unsaid.

The history of a diplomatic pressure tool transformed into tacit permission

The waiver on Russian oil exports was born in the first weeks of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. At the time, Washington had understood that a brutal and immediate cut to Russian oil would trigger a global energy crisis that would hit allied European economies and emerging markets first. The pragmatic solution: temporary exemptions that allowed third-party countries — India above all — to continue buying Russian crude at reduced prices without facing sanctions for doing so. A mechanism presented as transitional, but which had lasted, and lasted, and lasted some more.

Until June 17, 2026. According to data published by The National, Russian maritime crude exports to India were holding at record levels at the very moment the waiver expired. Which means the mechanism was fully performing its original function — but also that it had allowed Russia to maintain its oil revenues despite formal sanctions. By letting this waiver expire, Trump was not merely symbolically closing a door: he was signaling that Indian, Chinese, and other buyers would now have to choose — Russian oil or access to American markets. A de facto ultimatum.

There is something ironic about the fact that it was Trump — the man who had dismantled Iranian sanctions in 2018 — who was now using them, four years later, as a lever against Russia while simultaneously reopening the Iranian tap. Irony is not a weakness in policy. It is sometimes its deepest logic.

A geopolitical lock that opens for the first time in months

During the weeks of tension that preceded the MOU, the Strait of Hormuz had functioned as a sword of Damocles hanging over global oil markets. Every Iranian statement threatening to close the Strait sent crude prices spiking. Every maritime incident in the Arabian Sea — drones, tanker attacks, military exercises — was analyzed as a possible prelude to closure. The world had lived for months with the constant fear that 20% of its oil supplies could be cut off overnight.

The reopening on June 17, 2026, confirmed by the law firm Holland & Knight which had analyzed the MOU's maritime implications, was therefore no ordinary event. It was the deactivation of a pressure mechanism that Tehran had used as a bargaining chip for years. The MOU explicitly provides for Iranian oil exports over 60 days — a window during which Hormuz must remain open. For markets, for marine insurers, for the tanker captains who had been avoiding the zone, it was a breath of fresh air. For strategists, it was confirmation that Trump had traded pressure on Iran for pressure on Russia.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of those geographical places that concentrates more power than its physical dimensions suggest. Fifty-four kilometers wide at its narrowest point, yet a lever over the entire global economy. To understand Hormuz is to understand why oil is always a weapon as much as a commodity.

"We can do this because the oil is flowing": what that sentence really reveals

During the G7 discussions that followed the MOU signing, Donald Trump made a statement worth pausing over: "We can do this [press Russia] because the oil is flowing [from Iran]." Three elements are contained in this declaration, and each is a piece of the geopolitical puzzle. First element: Trump explicitly acknowledges that pressure on Russia was limited by energy constraints. Without a credible alternative to Russian oil for Asian markets, tightening sanctions meant risking a global energy crisis that would have hurt Western allies as much as Moscow.

Second element: Trump presents Iranian oil not as a concession to Tehran, but as an instrument of his anti-Russian pressure. This is a complete reversal of the narrative framework: the deal with Iran is not capitulation, it is strategic rearmament. Third element, the most troubling for Moscow: if Iranian oil effectively replaces Russian oil on global markets, Russia's oil revenues — which largely finance its war machine in Ukraine — could be genuinely compressed. This is not a certainty. It is a bet. But it is a bet that Trump appears to have decided to play.

Trump is rarely a strategist in the academic sense. But he has an instinct for the balance of power that sometimes allows him to arrive at the right result by paths no one had mapped. The energy pivot of June 17 may be the most striking example of that since his first term.

The fuel crisis in 53 Russian regions: the context that gives the pivot its force

To understand why this energy pivot hits so hard, one must look at the state of the Russian economy at the moment the waiver expires. Data available in late June 2026 paint a bleak picture: Russia is planning to import gasoline by sea to compensate for domestic shortages affecting its own regions — a tragic irony for the world's second-largest oil exporter. Russian refining infrastructure, partially destroyed or damaged by Ukrainian attacks on the ports of Kerch and Kavkaz, can no longer meet domestic demand.

The Bank of Russia had already flagged, in early June, the risks of accelerated inflation driven by war costs and fuel shortages. In this context, the loss of the American waiver is an additional shock to an economy already under extreme strain. Indian buyers hesitating to risk American sanctions, insurers revising their risk premiums on Russian cargoes, banks wary of the implications of the G7-imposed $60 Russian oil price cap — all of this converges to create unprecedented financial pressure on the Putin regime.

There is a geopolitical justice in Russia having to import gasoline by sea while sitting atop some of the world's largest oil reserves. This is the direct consequence of a war of choice and a poorly managed war economy. Putin chose this path. His people pay the price.

New Delhi caught between two fires: sanction or be sanctioned

India is the key actor in this new energy balance. Under the waiver regime, New Delhi had massively increased its purchases of discounted Russian crude — an economic windfall presented as pragmatic neutrality. With the waiver's expiration, the Modi government faces an uncomfortable dilemma: continue buying Russian oil and risk American secondary sanctions, or comply with the new rules and find costlier alternatives. The reopening of Hormuz and the availability of competitively priced Iranian crude for 60 days offers precisely that alternative — not perfectly, but sufficiently for India's economic calculation to shift.

China, for its part, buys Russian oil in yuan, via circuits that partially bypass the Western banking system. But Beijing is not immune to secondary sanctions. And if Washington decides to enforce them strictly — which the logic of Trump's pivot suggests — Chinese companies buying Russian crude could find themselves excluded from American and European markets. That is a risk that even Beijing calculates with caution. Trump's Iranian pivot therefore creates indirect pressure on China, via the competition between Iranian and Russian oil on Asian markets.

India and China have profited from the Ukrainian conflict by buying at reduced prices. One cannot blame them for economic rationality. But there comes a moment when the price of neutrality becomes higher than the price of compliance. That moment may have arrived on June 17, 2026.

What the MOU guarantees — and what it does not

The Iran-United States MOU is an interim agreement, not a treaty. It provides for Iranian oil exports over 60 days in exchange for guarantees on the status of the Strait of Hormuz and a commitment toward deeper nuclear negotiations. What the MOU does not guarantee is what comes next. The permanent nuclear negotiations that must follow are even more complex than the interim discussions. Iran will need to make concessions on its uranium enrichment program — probably capped at 60% purity, far from the 90% needed for a weapon — to obtain durable sanctions relief.

During these 60 days, Iranian oil returns to markets. But at what pace? Iran's oil infrastructure has suffered from years of sanctions. Iranian tankers, long barred from European ports, will need to rebuild their logistics networks. Potential buyers — Indian, European, Asian — will need to confirm the legality of their purchases under the new rules. All of that takes time. The 60-day window is narrow for full normalization. What Trump is betting on is that even partial normalization is enough to offset the increased pressure on Russian oil.

Sixty days to change the supply habits of global oil markets that have adapted over four years of sanctions and detours. That is tight. Very tight. But sometimes, in geopolitics, the window does not need to be large to shift the balance of power.

Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang: three different readings of the same signal

The energy pivot of June 17, 2026 was not read the same way by all actors in the international system. In Moscow, the reading is direct and painful: Washington has just demonstrated that it can replace Russian oil with Iranian oil. Putin's war machine, which depends on oil revenues to fund its operations in Ukraine, is now exposed to additional financial pressure. This is exactly what Ukrainian strategists had been demanding for months — and what the Trump team had refused to activate as long as it was seeking an agreement with Moscow on Ukraine.

In Beijing, the reading is more nuanced. China sees in the pivot a demonstration of America's capacity to reshape global energy alliances within weeks. It is an implicit warning: if Washington can do this with Iran, it can theoretically do the same with other partners of China. In Pyongyang, according to analyses published by 19FortyFive, the reading is existential: a functioning American-Iranian agreement would demonstrate that diplomatic and economic pressure can force even the most recalcitrant states to the negotiating table. Kim Jong-un is watching carefully — because the Iranian model could be applied to North Korea.

There is something deeply satisfying about watching the members of the CRINK axis — China, Russia, Iran, North Korea — forced to recalculate their positions in the face of an American pivot they had not anticipated. The solidity of that axis was always more circumstantial than ideological. June 17 may have revealed its cracks.

Gulf allies and Israel: between relief and mistrust

The Gulf monarchies — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait — experienced the June 17 pivot with a mixture of relief and unease. Relief because a reopened Strait of Hormuz reduces the risk of disruption to their own oil exports. Unease because an economically strengthened Iran — with its oil revenues restored — is potentially an Iran more capable of funding its regional proxies, the Houthis above all. Israel, for its part, watches the MOU with barely veiled anxiety: every additional dollar of Iranian oil revenue is, in Israeli thinking, a potential extra dollar in Hezbollah's coffers.

These tensions are not insurmountable. An MOU that holds — with visible reduction of Iranian proxy activity — could progressively dispel the fears of Gulf allies and Israel. But that requires Tehran to deliver on its commitments. And that is precisely the great question mark of the next 60 days. Oil markets, for their part, will not wait for the answer before readjusting their prices, routes, and contracts. Energy geopolitics plays out in real time — and June 17, 2026 will remain the day the rules changed.

I have covered these files for years, and I have rarely seen a pivot so clear, so deliberate, and so risky materialize in a single day. Whether this bet succeeds or fails, it deserved to be told as it happened — without romanticism, but without minimization either.

What this pivot could achieve — and where it could fall short

The energy pivot of June 17, 2026 is a bet. A bet that Iranian oil can effectively offset the pressure on Russian oil. A bet that the 60 days of the MOU will be sufficient to reshape the purchasing habits of major Asian importers. A bet that Tehran will honor its commitments long enough for the pivot to produce its geopolitical effects on Moscow. If the bet succeeds, Putin will face heightened financial pressure precisely when his war machine in Ukraine most needs revenue. If the bet fails — if Iran resumes its posturing over Hormuz, if the MOU collapses within 60 days — oil markets will plunge back into uncertainty and crude prices could reach levels that destabilize Western economies themselves.

That is the nature of the bet: the potential gains are considerable, but so are the losses in the event of failure. Trump has chosen to play. The West follows, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Ukraine watches and hopes that the additional pressure on Russian revenues will translate into concessions at the front. And history, as always in these moments, will take whatever time it needs to deliver its verdict.

Energy as a weapon: a lesson 2022 taught and 2026 confirms

If the pivot of June 17, 2026 teaches us anything, it is that energy remains the most powerful geopolitical weapon of the 21st century. More than drones, more than cyberattacks, more than financial sanctions taken in isolation — the capacity to control global oil flows still determines today who can pressure whom, and how far. Russia had used that weapon against Europe in 2022. The United States has just turned that logic against Moscow in 2026, using Iran as the lever. This is not a definitive victory. It is a battle in a long energy war that is far from over. But for now, it is a battle that Washington appears to have won on points.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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