The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) revoked the 22 June Iranian oil waiver on 7 July, replacing General License X with a wind-down-only licence, General License X1, that authorises no new purchases of Iranian crude and expires on 17 July. OFAC Director Bradley T. Smith signed it.1 OFAC is the US Treasury bureau that administers sanctions and issues the general licences that carve legal exemptions inside them, so its paperwork reaches any buyer clearing dollars through US banks.
The revocation narrows the one legal channel that kept some Iranian crude flowing to dollar-clearing customers. The bite lands on law-abiding buyers such as Japan's oil importers, while China, which never used the waiver, is untouched. Iranian barrels do not stop moving; their clean title does.
A day earlier this desk recorded the opposite picture, with OFAC sanctioning six other programmes and naming nothing on Iran or Hezbollah. Across 120 days Donald Trump had said a great deal on Iran and signed nothing. General License X1 ends that streak, and it does so by taking relief away.
The three Japanese houses that had asked Washington for a longer runway before committing to Iranian cargoes got the reverse: the window shut five weeks early rather than opening wider. Unlike the 29 June verbal stand-down, which evaporated on a phone call within days, a signed licence with a hard 17 July wind-down runs on OFAC's own clock. Traders who bought under General License X now have ten days to unwind.
