US Considers Allowing China to Import Iranian Oil

The US Department of State is discussing allowing China to import oil from Iran as payment for a Chinese company’s investment in an Iranian oilfield.  
The administration of US President Donald Trump is discussing issuing China a waiver to a 2012 US act on Iranian sanctions that would allow Beijing—Iran’s single biggest oil customer—to import oil from Iran, Oil Price reported.
The discussions revolve around giving China a waiver to import Iranian oil in exchange for investments that China’s Sinopec has made in an oilfield in Iran. US administration officials have offered Sinopec to grant a waiver for the repayment in oil in official correspondence between the Chinese company and the US Department of State.   
The report that the US is mulling over a kind of lenient treatment of Chinese imports of Iranian oil comes days after numerous media reports pointed to China already receiving Iranian oil cargoes despite the US sanctions on Iran’s oil, while the official US position continues to be driving Iran’s oil exports down to zero as soon as possible.
Now that there are no sanction waivers for Iranian oil buyers, the United States will sanction any import of crude oil from Iran, the US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said on Friday, reiterating comments he made last month amid reports that China has already imported its first crude oil cargo from Iran that breaches the US sanctions. 
“We will sanction any illicit purchases of Iranian crude oil,” he said.
Hook added that the US would be looking to check reports that Iranian crude oil tankers have departed and arrived in China after the US removed all sanction waivers for all Iranian crude oil customers.