Reuters Exclusive - Imports of Iranian crude have been flowing into the port and refining city of Dalian since late last year, tanker tracking firms and trading sources said, helping sustain the country's purchases of the oil at near record levels.
His statement was made alongside a video clip of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the US Congress on Wednesday, where Netanyahu emphasized Iran's threats.
On Truth Social, Trump wrote, “If they do ‘assassinate President Trump,’ which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth — If that does not happen, American Leaders will be considered ‘gutless’ cowards!”
US authorities were reportedly aware of an alleged Iranian plan to assassinate Trump before an attempt on his life occurred at a rally. On July 13, twenty-year-old Thomas Michael Crooks opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing a former volunteer fire chief and injuring two others. Trump was slightly injured in his ear.
However, no direct link has been found between the reported Iranian plot and the attempted assassination.
In a recent interview with Iran International, Trump's former national security aide John Bolton said that naturally Trump would take the Iranian threat personally.
Trump withdrew from the Obama-era JCPAO nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and imposed heavy sanctions, that have crippled Iran's weak economy.
Relations between the US and Iran became more strained since the 2020 US drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, and Iran's top military intelligence operative in the Middle East.
Iranian officials, both political and military, have persistently issued threats against Trump and former members of his administration to avenge Soleimani's death, who orchestrated Iran's proxy operations throughout the region. For instance, in February 2023, Amirali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace force, explicitly declared that the Islamic Republic intends to kill Trump.
In January 2022, Iran's former President Ebrahim Raisi vowed retaliation for Soleimani's killing unless former US President Donald Trump was brought to trial.
"If Trump and (former Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo are not tried in a fair court for the criminal act of assassinating General Soleimani, Muslims will take our martyr's revenge," Raisi said in a televised speech.
In 2022, the US Justice Department brought charges against a member of the IRGC for plotting to assassinate John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, likely in retaliation for Soleimani's death. Similar threats have been directed at other former Trump administration officials, including Mike Pompeo and Robert O'Brien, who continue to have security details due to ongoing risks.
Soleimani played a crucial role in Iran's external military and intelligence operations, often orchestrating hostilities against US forces in the region. Despite Iran's denials, the security concerns for those involved in the decision to kill Soleimani remain significant, necessitating ongoing protection measures.
Trump's post echoes his controversial rhetoric from 2019, when he threatened the "obliteration" of Iran if they attacked "anything American."
“Iran condemns the reception and protection of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Paris, demanding their exclusion over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Announcing the reception and protection of the apartheid terrorist Zionist regime’s delegation means giving legitimacy to the child killers,” Iran’s foreign ministry stated in a post on X on Tuesday.
The foreign ministry statement said Israel does "not deserve to be present at the Paris Olympics because of the war against the innocent people of Gaza,” calling on organizers to ban Iran's archenemy.
On Thursday, Israel's foreign minister warned his French counterpart of a potential Iranian-backed plot to target Israeli athletes and tourists during the Paris Olympic Games.
"We currently have assessments regarding the potential threat posed by Iranian terrorist proxies and other terrorist organisations who aim to carry out attacks against members of the Israeli delegation and Israeli tourists during the Olympics," Israel Katz told Stephane Sejourne.
Katz did not detail any specific intelligence or threat against the Games.
On July 26, the flags of 206 countries will be paraded by athletes at the opening ceremony in the Stade de France, including Iran. The Refugee Team, bearing the flag of the International Olympic Committee, will be represented by 14 Iranians who have fled the country. The team has 37 athletes from 11 countries. They will represent sports such as taekwondo, canoe slalom, badminton and wrestling.
The numbers of athletes fleeing Iran have continued to spiral since the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom uprising and after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody with athletes publicly taking the stage to oppose the government's oppression. Men and women from a range of sports have sought a life in exile, meaning competing under other flags.
Badminton player Dorsa Yavarifar, one of the youngest athletes on the Refugee Team, left Iran in 2018, just 15 at the time. Along with her mother, they left Tehran for Turkey using fake German passports.
She told Reuters she had been consistently rejected by the national badminton team without any given reason.
Shirin Shirzad, the former caretaker of Iran’s Women National Wrestling Team, told Iran International: “More than any other ministry in Iran, we witness mismanagement in the Sports Ministry, and that’s why many Iranian athletes whose big wish is to win medals in the Olympics or world competitions are leaving the country in clusters."
She said the federations lack experienced managers to help cultivate talent on the global stage. "An athlete sacrifices all his or her life to win a medal and when they see their efforts do not result in any advancement in personal life, they are forced to choose a better place to live," she added.
"I was really scared because I didn't know what was going to happen to me," said Yavarifar, who recently turned 21.
"I didn't know where I was going. My mum just said we were going to go to another country, but she never told me how or where," she noted. "It was all worth it. Now, that I think back about it—all that suffering is over, so I'm really happy now."
She is studying sports and exercise science at Middlesex University in London and trains three times a week at the Sankey Academy, an independent badminton club in Milton Keynes.
Saeedeh Fat’hi, an Iranian journalist, also told Iran International that sport is not a priority for Iranian officials who "want to misuse the achievements of the athletes to export the ideology of the Islamic Republic to other countries".
"When the Supreme Leader expresses gratitude to the woman who bore the flag of Iran wearing Hijab or the one who refused to shake hands with men in competitions, it shows how the Iranian government’s view of sports is,” she stressed.
Among the other Iranian athletes on the Refugee Team are Omid Ahmadi-Safa, a boxer who sought asylum in Germany and will compete in the 51 kg boxing category. Amir Rezanejad and Saeed Fazlouli, both refugees in Germany, along with Saman Soltani, a refugee in Austria, will represent Iranian rowing at the Paris Olympics.
Additionally, Mohammad Rashnonejad, a refugee in the Netherlands, and Mahboubeh Barbari Zharfi, a refugee in Germany, are the two Iranian judo athletes on the judo squad.
The Iranian national taekwondo team has four representatives in the Olympics, while the refugee taekwondo team includes three Iranians, making it likely they may come up against former team mates.
The wave of defections follows at least 30 Iranian athletes seeking asylum in recent years, escaping not only political repression in Iran but also specific challenges within the sports sector.
Athletes have cited issues such as corruption within sports federations, the enforced policy of not competing against Israeli athletes, and for women, the mandatory wearing of the hijab during competitions.
The Islamic Republic’s prohibition against its Olympic athletes competing against Israelis originates from its longstanding enmity toward the country since 1979.
Athletes are often pressured by government-controlled sports federation officials to intentionally lose matches or forfeit. Others, like judoka Leila Hosseini, have been told to cite injuries to avoid competing against Israeli opponents. For Hosseini, it cost her a gold medal in Tbilisi.
This year marks the third appearance of the refugee team in the Olympic Games, which began with a small team of 10 athletes in the 2016 Rio Olympics, growing to 29 in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and now reaching 37 athletes in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
War-torn Syria and Afghanistan each have five athletes, sharing the second place after Iran. This means that each of these two countries, whose people are under the pressure of the Taliban and Bashar al-Assad, have about one-third of Iran's share in the Refugee Team. While Iran condemns the inclusion of Israeli athletes, it remains silent on the plight of its own refugees.
The shift has happened as demand for Iranian crude from small buyers in the independent refining hub of Shandong province has waned in the face of deteriorating refining margins, squeezed by higher crude prices but weaker-than-expected fuel demand, traders said. They have been Iran's main buyers in China since 2019.
Iran, including its oil, is subject to US sanctions, reinstated in 2018 over concerns about its nuclear program. But China did not stop buying Iranian oil, with margin-driven independent plants filling a vacuum left by sanctions-wary state firms, Reuters has reported.
Vortexa, a consultancy that tracks tanker flows, said 23 cargoes, or a total of 45 million barrels, of Iranian oil was discharged at Dalian between October 2023 and June 2024.
It said this included 28 million barrels discharged at Changxing island, about 85 km (53 miles) northwest of central Dalian.
Another consultancy, Kpler, estimated China imported 34 million barrels into Dalian during the same period.The figures equate to 124,000-164,000 barrels per day, roughly 13% of China's total Iranian oil imports during the first half of 2024.Analysts estimate China imported 1.2-1.4 million bpd of Iranian crude during the period. Vortexa said the imports hit a record 1.52 million bpd last October.
When asked about the Dalian imports, China's foreign ministry told Reuters that China and Iran "have always maintained normal and legitimate trade under the international legal framework."China says it opposes unilateral sanctions. Still, tanker trackers and dealers say that traders rebrand Iranian oil destined for China as originating from elsewhere, such as Malaysia, Oman or the United Arab Emirates.
Officially, Chinese customs have not reported any imports of Iranian oil since June 2022.
There are four possible destinations for the Dalian shipments - Hengli Petrochemical's 400,000-bpd refinery complex and 44 million-barrel storage farm, two refineries run by state-giant PetroChina, and a 30 million-barrel storage base operated by the Liaoning Port Authority at Changxing island.
There is no pipeline connecting the storage facility to refineries outside Dalian, traders said.
Three senior trading sources close to Hengli said the company bought at least some of the shipments.
One of the sources estimated Hengli had bought 4 million barrels a month during the first few months of 2024. Another said the purchases were 4-6 million barrels a month.
Vortexa said Hengli was a buyer of Iranian crude shipments, based on its tanker tracking information and analysis.
A Hengli spokesperson said the company had not bought Iranian oil.
PetroChina, like China's other big state crude buyers, stopped buying Iranian oil around 2018/2019, traders and other industry experts have said.
PetroChina, Asia's largest oil-and-gas producer, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Liaoning Port Group and its unit Liaoning Port Co Ltd did not respond to emailed requests seeking comment.
Before last October, Dalian, which accounts for 6% of China's crude processing capacity, had received only sporadic Iranian oil shipments in recent years, according to Vortexa and Kpler.
Iranian oil is attractive to refiners due to steep discounts relative to similar Middle Eastern grades, such as Oman or Murban, or Russia's main export grade ESPO Blend.
(Report by Reuters)
