Incoming Trump administration officials reportedly are developing a sanctions strategy that they hope will expedite a peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine war.
The plan being facilitated also focuses squeezing Iran and Venezuela, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
Some of President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees, as well as former sanction officials in his first administration, are discussing strategy to end the war, the outlet said.
On Friday, the Biden administration announced it was expanding sanctions against Russia's critically important energy sector, unveiling a new effort to inflict pain on Moscow.
However, NATO allies appear to be waiting to confer with Trump and his team before deciding whether to support the rollover of European Union sanctions on Russia due at the end of this month and believes the EU should decide only after consulting with the Trump administration, Hungary's EU minister said Thursday.
"I think it is only natural that before we decide on the rollover for another six months, we ask the incoming U.S. administration how they see the future of the sanctions regime," Janos Boka told reporters in Brussels.
Bloomberg reported that incoming Trump administration officials are considering two main options in regard to sanctions.
If they believe a resolution to the Ukraine war is relatively close, good-faith measures to benefit sanctioned Russian oil producers could help bring about a peace deal, sources told the outlet.
Another option would build on the current sanctions in an attempt to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to end the conflict.
Trump's team, as did Biden's, will try to avoid major supply and price disruptions to the oil market at a time when Washington has extensive sanctions on three of the world's top producers: Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.
The latest round of U.S. sanctions against Russia could significantly disrupt the country's oil supply chains, the International Energy Agency said in a monthly report on Wednesday, potentially tightening the global market.
Even so, the outlook from IEA, which advises industrialized countries, still suggests the market will be in surplus this year as supply growth led by countries outside the OPEC+ producer group exceeds subdued expansion in world demand.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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