The White House says that overnight, it will reinstitute regulations that,
among other things, prohibit the Iranian government's use of U.S. dollars and erect barriers to trade with Iran involving aluminum and steel, the Iranian automotive and airline industries, and gold and other precious minerals. It will be an additional 90 days before the rest of the sanctions "snap back" into place in early November. This includes the sanctions that are expected to carry more weight — including bans on doing business with Iran's Central Bank and accepting the country's crude oil exports. In a statement
released Monday, President Trump cast the move to restore sanctions as a means of rectifying what it says is the Obama administration's mistake in agreeing to the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. That accord — negotiated also with the U.K., France, German, Russia and China — suspended U.S. sanctions in return for limits and regular inspections on Iran's nuclear programs, while allowing the country to continue enriching uranium for peaceful energy purposes.
On Monday, Trump called the pact a "horrible, one-sided deal" that failed to block Iran's nuclear aspirations and "threw a lifeline of cash to a murderous dictatorship that has continued to spread bloodshed, violence, and chaos." "To this day," Trump added, "Iran threatens the United States and our allies, undermines the international financial system, and supports terrorism and militant proxies around the world." The move, which follows through on
Trump's May 8 vow to unilaterally withdraw from the multinational nuclear agreement, cheered
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
members of the president's party, who had long railed against the deal. Shortly after it was negotiated, Republicans in Congress
tried, and
narrowly failed, to pass a resolution formally disapproving of the executive agreement. Since then withdrawing from the deal has become a centerpiece of GOP campaigns, including Trump's
presidential run in 2016.
An Iranian woman walks past a wall mural last month in downtown Tehran, Iran.
Outside U.S. borders, however, the Trump administration's decision to snap sanctions back into place has been received with a mixture of regret, anger and alarm — especially among the other countries that engaged in the deal, and that have promised to stick with it despite the U.S. decision to renege on its commitment. "The JCPOA is working and delivering on its goal, namely to ensure that the Iranian programme remains exclusively peaceful, as confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 11 consecutive reports," representatives for the European Union, France, the U.K. and Germany said in
a joint statement on Monday. "It is a key element of the global nuclear non-proliferation architecture, crucial for the security of Europe, the region, and the entire world. We expect Iran to continue to fully implement all its nuclear commitments under the JCPOA."
Earlier this year, two months before Trump's withdrawal announcement. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano
reaffirmed that Iran "is implementing its nuclear-related commitments," adding that if the 2015 deal were to fail, "it would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism." That's a sentiment echoed in Monday's joint statement by the European ministers, who put the matter only a bit differently: "Preserving the nuclear deal with Iran is a matter of respecting international agreements and a matter of international security." The EU announced that its "blocking statute" — aimed at "sustaining trade and economic relations between the EU and Iran" in the face of renewed U.S. sanctions — will
enter into force on the same day as the restored sanctions.
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