Iran’s illicit oil revenue has swelled to nearly $200 billion under the Biden-Harris administration, according to the latest government figures and expert estimates, a windfall driven by the perennially lax enforcement of U.S. sanctions that has helped Tehran’s hardline regime obtain the cash needed to fund a brutal year-long war on Israel.
The full financial toll of this sanctions relief only became clear in recent days following the publication of a hotly anticipated U.S. government report on Iran's oil trade. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, a government agency that monitors global markets, was mandated under an April 2024 law to publicly tally Iran’s oil revenue, providing one of the first official snapshots after four years of sparse sanctions enforcement by the Biden-Harris administration.
The report, released late last week, found that Iran made $144 billion in revenue during the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration. This includes $37 billion in 2021, significantly up from the $16 billion Tehran made in 2020, the last year of the Trump administration. Oil revenue rose to $54 billion in 2022 and hit $53 billion in 2023, showing that Tehran’s trade in crude remained at historically high levels.
Iran is on pace for another big year in 2024, exporting more than $34 billion in oil through October, according to figures compiled by United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), an advocacy group that monitors Tehran's global oil shipments through a comprehensive tanker tracker.
The figures could explain why the Biden-Harris administration, facing criticism over the increasing chaos in the Middle East under its watch, announced late Friday a new package of sanctions on Iran’s petroleum exports. The measures grant broad authority for the American government to impose "sanctions against any person determined to operate in the petroleum or petrochemical sectors of the Iranian economy," according to the State Department.
Claire Jungman, director of UANI’s Iran Tanker Tracking Program, said the latest figures produced by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, as well as her group's 2024 estimate, should serve as a "catalyst for the administration to enforce sanctions more aggressively on vessels transporting Iranian oil."
"The illicit activity detailed in the report underscores the need for firm action to hold these vessels accountable and ensure that sanctions are effectively implemented to curtail Iran’s ability to export oil in violation of U.S. sanctions," Jungman said.
The cash windfall from Iran’s oil sales has helped the hardline regime arm its chief terror proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, as they foment terrorism against Israel in the wake of Oct. 7. Though Republicans have long sounded the alarm about Tehran’s lucrative oil trade, Democratic lawmakers are now backing a Senate measure that would bolster sanctions on Iran’s oil trade, signaling growing dissatisfaction with the Biden-Harris administration’s policies.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) began pushing legislation to sanction Iran’s oil business in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, aiming to choke off the financial channels fueling Tehran’s terror proxies. That bill has now gained the support of seven Democratic lawmakers, including two in recent weeks.
"We are witnessing increased attacks on our servicemembers, historic missile assaults on our greatest partner in the Middle East, and disruptions to international commerce in the Red Sea," Ernst told the Washington Free Beacon, referring to a flurry of Iran-backed attacks on international shipping lanes in recent months. "No wonder my bill to remove money from Iran’s bloody hands is gaining support now."
Under the legislation, the Iranian Sanctions Enforcement Act, the Department of Homeland Security's investigations unit would receive $150 million to expand operations targeting Tehran’s large fleet of illegal crude oil tankers. By seizing these ships as they transport oil to hostile regimes like China and Venezuela, Iran would be robbed of billions of dollars, money that keeps the regime afloat and its terror proxies in business. The bill, Ernst says, is vital to ensuring Homeland Security can detect illicit Iranian shipping operations and have the resources needed to bust them at sea.
Ernst’s bill currently has 27 Senate backers, including Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Jacky Rosen, (Nev.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Bob Casey (Pa.), and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz), an independent who typically caucuses with Democrats. Two other Democrats, Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), signed onto the bill in recent weeks, joining 20 GOP colleagues, 10 of whom also joined the bill within the last month.
The recent support for the bill signals growing dismay on both sides of the aisle with the Biden-Harris administration’s refusal to enforce a bevy of sanctions on Iran’s oil trade. Tehran maintains a large "ghost armada" composed of nearly 500 oil tankers that ferry crude to China, Syria, Venezuela, and other nations, often at a heavy discount.
Iranian "petroleum products are generally shipped on smaller vessels, which can avoid detection more easily than crude oil cargoes," according to the U.S. Energy Information report. "Iran uses several obfuscation techniques such as turning off its ship identification signals, applying ship-to-ship transfers, or relabeling cargoes as originating from other countries for both crude oil and oil products, which increases the challenge of providing precise export data."
Iran’s oil boom has been bolstered by sanctions relief from the Biden-Harris administration, including a White House waiver that allowed Tehran to access upwards of $10 billion in backed electricity payments from Iran. The administration also struck a $6 billion hostage deal with Iran in September 2023, freeing up even more cash.