US Issues 30-Day Waiver Allowing India to Lift Stranded Russian Crude Amid Hormuz Blockade

Washington’s carve-out echoes President Eisenhower’s 1956 decision to tap tanker reroutes during the Suez Crisis—temporary logistics fixes while larger power politics played out. In 2026, as in 1956 or the 1973 OPEC embargo, choke-points (then Suez and Abqaiq, now Hormuz) expose how energy security and financial sanctions intertwine. The waiver underscores two longer-running forces: (1) the U.S. habit of weaponising dollar-denominated trade—granting and withdrawing ‘licenses’ that even large peers like India must heed; and (2) the gradual eastward shift of oil demand, with India using every disruption to renegotiate supply terms and diversify. Over a 100-year horizon this moment may mark another incremental step toward a multipolar energy order where secondary powers bargain hard between rival blocs; the license itself is a band-aid, but the controversy over India’s ‘permission’ signals growing resistance to unilateral sanction regimes and, potentially, a slow erosion of US financial primacy.