President Donald Trump warned Iran on Wednesday against resuming its nuclear weapons program, a day after announcing that he was withdrawing the US from the landmark Iran nuclear deal.
Advertisement
After a political roller coaster of a year for the West and months of lobbying and political bickering that was characterized by many missed opportunities to find a real fix, President Trump pulled the United States out of Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the JCPOA. “We’re out of the deal”, he said. “Maybe, in the end, it will also help the Iranian citizens”.
Celia Belin, a former policy adviser to the French foreign ministry and a visiting fellow to the Brookings Institution in Washington, says Europe will not reimpose its own sanctions on Iran.
Interested in Iran? Add Iran as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Iran news, video, and analysis from ABC News.
In his speech on 8 May announcing U.S. withdrawal, President Trump laid out several points of a firm policy towards Iranian regime.
“I think it was a good move”, said a 32-year-old programmer from Herzliya who declined to disclose his name.
“This time it’s different, because there is no consensus, it is not taken for granted that other countries will also impose sanctions”, said Hakimian. North Korea has always been one of the most secretive nations in the world, making intelligence gathering a hard task. “This issue is, for Netanyahu, paramount”.
“Clearly, Mike Pompeo was acting on behalf of the president”.
Trump was right to abandon Obama’s wishful thinking and reimpose economic sanctions on Iran.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson also made a last-minute dash to Washington but did not get to see the president.
As Trump puts the planet on notice that “America First” is not just a campaign slogan, he turns his back on multilateralism and the stability of the current worldwide order. We know that the plan’s diplomatic approach slowed Iran’s nuclear program, although it may not have stopped it completely.
In a burst of last-minute diplomacy, punctuated by a visit by Britain’s top diplomat, the deal’s European members had given ground on many of Trump’s demands for reworking the accord, according to officials, diplomats and others briefed on the negotiations. There is a lot of uncertainty in the market which stems from the White House itself, said Eric Armitage, chief investment officer of East Alpha, a hedge fund specializing in energy.
“The kingdom supports and welcomes the steps announced by the USA president toward withdrawing from the nuclear deal. and reinstating economic sanctions against Iran”, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said.
The $400 million was just the first installment in a cash settlement made between the Iran regime and the Obama administration to settle an arms deal signed before 1979.
Peek acknowledged there are some “diplomatically tactical disagreements” with Europeans, but said those differences could be overcome. By midway through last week, European diplomats “felt like we were going through the motions”, a European official said. Yet the Europeans realized he was unpersuaded. They hobbled Iran’s economy, for instance, and it has not recovered, despite the regime receiving much of the deal’s financial benefit upfront.
“You mean you had three months, and you didn’t do anything?” he told them, the source said. Paradoxically, as CNN Moneyexplained on Tuesday, renewed sanctions on Iran could actually help China by making more oil available for it to purchase, assuming Europe respects US sanctions while China does not.
“We realized we have to buy time”.
Advertisement
“The composition of what happens when we sit down with the Iranians is several stages out”, the official said, adding that talks would focus on how to raise pressure on Iran “in a way that is constructive and conducive to bringing them to the negotiating table”.
