00:00Well, there are other countries. The problem is these sanctions were not just sanctions on Russia.
00:03They include tariffs on a number of countries, India, for example, and others.
00:08And so I think the president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyze
00:12what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the U.S. economy.
00:18I think when the bill was passed, one of the reasons the waivers were put in there
00:21is understanding that they would need some period of time to study this,
00:24given all the different things that are going on in the world right now,
00:27including the pressure on global energy supplies that are happening not just because of Iran
00:31and not just because of the Straits of Hormuz, but increasingly because of the Houthis attacking Saudi Arabia
00:36and because of the war with Ukraine and Russia, where energy infrastructure is being hit.
00:42And so that's having an impact on global prices as well.
00:45So I think you have to take all of that into account and weigh it against each other.
00:48And then you've got countries like India, for example, that have voluntarily diversified their energy portfolio
00:54but are still getting a substantial amount of energy from Russia because it's hard to pivot from one day to
00:58the next.
00:59But they're also an important ally and partner of the United States.
01:02So the president, we need that period of time to sort of study all this and figure out what the
01:06right combination is.
01:07Between this waiver and the diesel deal, I mean, there's a criticism that we're basically giving Putin something for nothing.
01:13We're giving Putin these freebies.
01:15What's your response?
01:16Well, that diesel is going to be sold one way or the other.
01:18I mean, the diesel that Putin was going to sell, they were going to make it available to the global
01:22market one way or the other.
01:23The only difference is how much of it the United States was going to get.
01:27But this is not unprecedented.
01:28If you recall a few months ago, we also did a 60-day waiver on Russian oil when Hormuz was
01:34being challenged.
01:35So, yeah, these conflicts around the world are starting to crash into each other.
01:38And they're having an impact not just on global oil and diesel prices but on economic.
01:43And, I mean, the United States, we're paying higher prices than we all want to be paying.
01:46But you look at some of these other countries around the world, they're near crisis mode.
01:49So all of these things have to be managed delicately because they're all coming together now.
01:55It's not just the Strait of Hormuz anymore.
01:57It's what's happening with Saudi Arabia and the uncertainty that that's creating.
02:01It's also what's happening between Russia and Ukraine and the constraints that's putting on global energy supplies.
