Fdd's overnight brief

Iran

A U.S. oil ban won’t stop Iran from selling its crude, the country’s oil minister said, even as new signs emerged that Tehran’s crude exports are heading toward a collapse. The Trump administration will remove exemptions for buyers of Iranian oil beginning on Thursday, enforcing a complete embargo on Iran’s crude exports. But “bringing Iran’s oil exports to zero is a wish of the Americans, but it is an illusion,” Bijan Zanganeh said at an oil-and-gas conference in Tehran on Wednesday. – Wall Street Journal

The head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries warned against the political use of oil markets during a trip to Tehran, as tightened U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports begin. – Wall Street Journal

Saudi Arabia said Thursday it was responding to an emergency involving an Iranian oil tanker off the coast of Jiddah, and analysts said the vessel carried over 1 million barrels of fuel oil and might be leaking. – Associated Press

Iran on Wednesday criticized a US plan to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. “The US is not in position to (..) start naming others as terror organizations and we reject by any attempt by the US in this regard,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters on a sideline of a conference in Doha, Qatar, according to Reuters. – Reuters

The U.S. special representative for Iran is traveling to the United Nations to update permanent members of the Security Council on U.S. policy toward Iran, as Washington looks to step up pressure on Tehran. The so-called special-purpose vehicle, will help European firms with legitimate business interests to use barter techniques to conduct business in Iran, European officials said. – Radio Farda

Iran’s economy is on the brink thanks to the Trump administration’s sanctions, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The crisis is intensifying a chasm between President Hassan Rouhani’s allies and those who oppose diplomatic exchanges with the U.S. government, the Financial Times noted. – Fox News

Kuwait has announced its concern following Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that links the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. It is the main artery for the transport of oil from the Middle East. – Jerusalem Post

Iran’s supreme leader, senior military commanders, top diplomat and the president have all in recent days attacked US sanctions imposed on Tehran. Battle-ready warships are patrolling the high-traffic Strait of Hormuz, with Iranian officials saying if they can’t sell oil through the strait, no one will. – Al Jazeera

Iran criticized a U.S. plan to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in Doha on Wednesday. – Reuters

Gulf States

Saudi Arabia has pledged to boost oil output if needed, as the Trump administration starts banning all Iran oil exports on Thursday. But behind the scenes, Riyadh and Washington face a potentially weekslong showdown over the number of extra barrels the kingdom would supply to global markets to keep crude prices stable. – Wall Street Journal

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has offered Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas $10 billion if he accepts US President Donald Trump’s plan for peace in the Middle East, also known as the “deal of the century,” the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on Tuesday. – Jerusalem Post

Bahrain’s foreign minister gave a frosty response on Wednesday after French President Emmanuel Macron urged the Gulf Arab state to resume political dialogue with the opposition. Bahrain’s ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family has kept a lid on dissent since the Shi’ite opposition staged a failed uprising in 2011 in the country, base of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. – Reuters

Saudi Arabia’s coast guard assisted an Iranian oil tanker with engine trouble off the coast of Jeddah in the Red Sea after Riyadh received a request for help from Iran, the state news agency SPA said on Thursday.  – Reuters

Dennis Ross writes: Few American foreign-policy challenges are more vexing or divisive than relations with Saudi Arabia today. U.S. interests would seem to dictate close ties, but American values argue otherwise. – Bloomberg

China

A federal judge in Washington has ordered three Chinese banks partly or wholly owned by the Beijing government to turn over documents in a U.S. criminal investigation into how a Hong Kong corporation allegedly helped North Korea’s regime evade sanctions, new court filings show. – Washington Post

Negotiators made headway on thorny issues in the U.S.-China trade dispute, including access to key markets and how to roll back punitive tariffs, as both sides prepare for talks they hope will clinch a deal. Chinese subsidies and other sticking points remain, however. – Wall Street Journal

Chinese authorities in Xinjiang are building a comprehensive database that tracks the precise locations of its citizens, their mobile app usage, their religious habits and even their electricity and gasoline consumption as part of a technology-driven crackdown that has interred an estimated 1 million Muslim citizens, according to an analysis of Chinese government software by a U.S. rights group. – Washington Post  

A former C.I.A. officer pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a charge of conspiring with Chinese intelligence agents in a case that highlighted the growing aggressiveness of Beijing’s spy services. – New York Times  

Top US and Chinese trade negotiators held productive talks in Beijing on Wednesday, the American side said, as the economic superpowers head towards an endgame in a dispute that has hit businesses with bruising tariffs. – Agence France-Presse

China may declare its first stealth fighter operational this year as it also develops long-range bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons, part of a regional buildup by Beijing that the U.S. is closely monitoring, according to the U.S. Air Force’s Pacific commander. – Bloomberg

Jung-Hoon Lee writes: Most dangerous is the proposed change to extradition laws that would allow Hong Kong to send suspected criminals to mainland China. Activists cite the 2015 abduction of five booksellers as an example of the type of government kidnapping that could be legalized under such an extradition law. If it passes, Hong Kong residents could be transferred to the mainland and subjected to a judicial system that has no independence and functions at the whim of the Communist Party.  – Wall Street Journal

John Lee writes: Australia has an important choice: help shape and improve important elements of a US-led collective effort to impose carrots and sticks on China to persuade the latter to play by the rules, or sit and wait for a world that is passing and will not return. – Hudson Institute

Shane Tews writes: China has been a major funder of infrastructure in Asia and Africa in recent years through its Belt and Road Initiative, a global effort by Beijing to create geopolitical allies through investment in traditional physical infrastructure. But over the past decade, the initiative has found itself shape-shifting into a digital strategy in Europe, thanks in large part to work by Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant. – American Enterprise Institute

Jane Nakano writes: Energy projects have been central to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since its inception in 2013. Especially since the first forum two years ago, “greening” has become a sub-theme of the BRI that seeks to propel China to become a global leader in environmentally sustainable development. Beijing has now had several chances to take its green intentions and turn them into action. Making good on the environmental protocols and standards it has once again put forward to guide BRI investments will mean the difference between genuine greening or simply greenwashing. – Center for Strategic and International Studies

South Asia

Sri Lankan authorities released for the first time the names and photos of the nine people they say detonated suicide bombs on Easter Sunday and killed more than 250 people at hotels, churches and a private residence across three cities. – Washington Post

In a major diplomatic win for India, the United Nations on Wednesday added the leader of an outlawed Pakistani militant group to its sanctions blacklist after the group claimed responsibility for a February suicide attack in disputed Kashmir that killed 40 Indian soldiers. – Associated Press

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said a foreign mastermind may have planned the Easter Sunday bombings, claimed by Islamic State, telling the militant group to “leave my country alone”. – Reuters

Indian and Bangladeshi officials and security experts largely dismissed a fresh threat of violence from an Islamic State-aligned media group, insisting that safety measures and surveillance are adequate to keep militants from carrying out a Sri Lanka-style attack elsewhere in South Asia. – Associated Press  

President Maithripala Sirisena warned in an interview that the attacks against churches and hotels in which more than 250 people died could signal a “new strategy” by IS to hit smaller countries that make softer targets than more powerful nations. – Sky News

Europe

Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday fired her defense secretary, Gavin Williamson, for allegedly playing a role in leaking details from a meeting about Britain’s willingness to work with Chinese telecom giant Huawei. – Washington Post

A British court sentenced Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, to 50 weeks in prison on Wednesday for jumping bail when he took refuge in Ecuador’s Embassy in London seven years ago. The United States is seeking Mr. Assange’s extradition for prosecution there, and an initial hearing on that request is expected on Thursday. Officials in Sweden have left open the possibility that he could face criminal charges in that country, as well. – New York Times

Thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Paris and other French cities Wednesday in a May Day labor demonstration, an annual event that carried unusual venom in the era of France’s “yellow vest” movement. – Washington Post

The mostly ex-communist countries that have joined the European Union in the past 15 years want Brussels to return more powers to national capitals, Poland’s prime minister said on Wednesday after hosting a summit of the 13 newcomers. – Reuters

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said the European Parliament’s main center-right group must forge an alliance with populist, nationalist groups after impending EU elections, receiving a swift rebuke from Germany’s conservative leader. – Reuters

The head of the Muslim World League, Dr Mohammad Al Issa, will become the most senior Islamic leader to visit Auschwitz under an agreement signed with the American Jewish Committee on Tuesday in New York. – The National

Sweden has dispatched one of its Gulfstream S102B Korpen electronic intelligence (ELINT) aircraft to the Mediterranean to operate from a UK airbase on Cyprus. – IHS Jane’s

Kimberly Cowell-Meyers and Carolyn Gallaher write: The Brexit process has also damaged the relationship between the governments of Britain and the Republic of Ireland — a relationship that once provided a framework to accommodate Northern Ireland’s warring sides. But the two governments’ shared understanding has degenerated as they fight over the status of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Although all sides want to prevent violence from resuming, they differ on how to deal post-Brexit with the border, which — because both nations have been European Union members — currently has no passport or customs checkpoints. – Washington Post  

Dalibor Rohac writes: Among the more compelling arguments for Brexit in 2016 was the idea that the center of gravity of the global economy was shifting away from Europe. In order to capitalize on the new opportunities, the argument went, the United Kingdom should unmoor itself from the rigid and introspective European Union. – Foreign Policy

Latin America

Millions of Cubans took to the streets on Wednesday in protest over new sanctions imposed on the Caribbean island by the Trump administration and U.S. efforts to topple the government of socialist ally Venezuela. – Reuters

The Trump administration’s decision to activate a provision of the U.S. embargo on Cuba with the potential to affect foreign investment in Cuba for many years to come will allow Americans, and Cubans who later become Americans, to sue almost any company deemed to be “trafficking” in property confiscated by Cuba’s government. – Associated Press  

The European Union could take the United States to the World Trade Organization or use retaliatory sanctions to protect its companies in Cuba after President Donald Trump lifted a ban on U.S. citizens filing lawsuits against investors there. – Reuters

Cybersecurity

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was sentenced Wednesday to 50 weeks in a British prison for jumping bail in 2012. – Washington Post  

A mobile app used by police to track citizens in China’s far west region of Xinjiang shows how some of the country’s biggest technology companies are linked to a mass surveillance system that is more sophisticated than previously known, according to a report from Human Rights Watch. – Bloomberg

Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg stood on stage Tuesday at the company’s annual F8 conference in San Jose, California, in front of a giant screen sharing a simple message: “The future is private.” Zuckerberg spent most of his speech talking about Facebook’s commitment to a privacy-focused future, which will include more ephemeral posts, small-group activity rather than public sharing, and encryption for Facebook’s messaging apps. – Bloomberg

Alexis C. Madrigal writes: Cyberspace was a way of thinking about the radical changes brought about by the internet. It gave internet companies, regular people, odd collectives, weird technologies, and other entities space to create something transnational, individualistic, largely unregulated, and free (as in speech and sometimes as in beer). – The Atlantic

Long War

When the FBI arrested an Army veteran in a plot to bomb a white supremacist rally in Southern California, it was the work of a confidential informant that helped snare him. – Associated Press  

The father of CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann, the first American to be killed in action after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has blasted the scheduled release this month of John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban who was part of a prison uprising in which his son was slain. Johnny Spann, 70, of Winfield, Alabama, told the Washington Examiner that Lindh, now 38, remains a threat and called on President Trump to ensure he serves his full term of 20 years, which expires in November 2021, rather than being feed because of good behavior on May 23. – Washington Examiner

Brandon Wallace and Jennifer Cafarella write: ISIS has orchestrated an annual campaign of intensified attacks around the Islamic holy month of Ramadan since 2012, first in Iraq and then globally. It has sustained this recurring surge in its global operations every year despite its concurrent territorial losses in Iraq and Syria. – Institute for the Study of War