Here is the most irresponsible thing that the Trump administration did today.
The Trump administration on Monday moved to reimpose the first round of Iranian trade sanctions that had been suspended under the 2015 nuclear agreement, distancing itself from every other country that signed the agreement and putting the accord’s future in jeopardy.
U.S. officials said the sanctions that have been waived for the past two and a half years will be snapped back officially on Tuesday morning at one minute past midnight.
From that moment on, Iran will be prohibited from using U.S. dollars, the primary currency or international financial transactions and oil purchases. Trade in metals and sales of Iranian-made cars will be banned. Permits allowing the import of Iranian carpets and food, such as pistachios, will be revoked. So will licenses that have allowed Tehran to buy U.S. and European aircraft and parts — a restriction that comes just days after Iran completed the acquisition of five new commercial planes from Europe.
Those who don’t comply could be subject to “severe consequences,” President Trump said in a statement. That was directed at European governments that expressed regret over the U.S. sanctions, and vowed to protect their own companies from legal reprisals by the U.S. government.
And here is how that is going over with our allies:
The European Union and U.S. allies Britain, France and Germany announced what they called a “blocking statute” to take effect Tuesday that would attempt to nullify U.S. legal action against European firms doing business with Iran.
“We are determined to protect European economic operators engaged in legitimate business with Iran, in accordance with EU law,” a joint statement said.
“The JCPOA is working and delivering on its goal, namely to ensure that the Iranian programme remains exclusively peaceful,” said the statement, which repeated the commitment of the remaining parties to the deal to keep financial channels open and continue Iran’s export of oil and gas.
“Preserving the nuclear deal with Iran is a matter of respecting international agreements and a matter of international security,” they said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is charged with monitoring Iran’s nuclear program, has said in 11 consecutive reports that Tehran remains in compliance with the commitments it made.
I hope it’s obvious that American leadership is catastrophically undermined when our allies begin taking legal and legislative action in order to get out of compliance requirements with our sanctions. That shouldn’t be a hard concept to understand. We are no longer leading any kind of alliance. We’re just doing whatever Donald Trump wants to do, and what he wants to do has no support from our allies.
Nonetheless, this will put more pressure on the regime in Teheran and serve to discredit their promises on the economy. The value of the rial has been collapsing and many of their problems were supposed to be behind them. Widespread civil unrest could develop, although in more general terms this move weakens the U.S. and strengthens Iran while doing real damage to international commitments to anti-proliferation efforts.
BooMan, typo in the title? “Iraq” should be “Iran”?
I don’t think this one is up at Washington Monthly. Might be till tomorrow.
. . . but good on EU, Britain, France, and Germany for their principled defiance. May they continue it in lockstep solidarity. It’s the only defensible course.
Another dumb Trump move that gains the US nothing, doing more damage than good. Our word in negotiation with any nation, ally or not, is now shot. Here Trump is manipulating the nation’s foreign policy to serve his own narrow political goals that run counter to the nation’s foreign policy goals, throwing red meat to less than a quarter of voters consisting of the most hateful, ignorant “Americans” ever.
Not only this, but as a consequence of electing this idiot, in the future NO ONE will trust that agreements of any kind will be honored, since all it would take is a change of regimes for treaties/contracts to be dumped.
And that would be true. Why should any nation trust the USA anyway, but especially now? Sure if We the People manage, somehow, to elect a more sane government over the next few years? Great, but so what?
All it takes is the brain-dead brainwashed morons out there to come out in force in elect someone miles worse than Trump. You think we’re in Hell now? This is the tip of the iceberg, as they say.
The USA has always been a pretty slippery customer, but our word is clearly no longer our bond.
Fool me once and all that carryon.
If the reporting is correct that Iran has already hacked our infrastructure and put in place cyberbombs this latest news will probably be the moment they pull the trigger. Thanks Trump.
If the reporting is correct that Iran has already hacked our infrastructure and put in place cyberbombs this latest news will probably be the moment they pull the trigger. Thanks Trump.
I’m sure John Bolton is very happy.
Chicken hawks think alike, it would seem.
This is where China might step into that space as the donald works on building that trump tower in NK. Hush money for Kin so he will just stop all public statements. China is capable of hooking Iran with some Africans where they can trade some food for Iranian help with a start up for a medical clinic.
China signed an oil deal with Iran last month and said sanctions be damned.
All Trump will accomplish with this is to undermine American power and leadership, which was already sitting on the rim of the toilet. Now we get to fall in and take a big gulp. Other than undermining our credibility on the world stage, alienating our allies and forcing them to demonstrate an ability to move forward without us, it accomplishes nothing. In my view, it probably props up hardliners in Iran too.
For the last thirty plus years we’ve been descending further and further into banana republic territory. Seems we’ve finally arrived.
“we are no longer leading any kind of alliance”.
Well, you have stated the reality in appropriately harsh terms. A shame that there is no organized opposition party or professional journalists to make such statements (of reality) in mass media. (That 45% of the failed American electorate cannot be made to care is an issue for another day…)
The idea of the US as a global strategic leader is now done, and the world’s global strategists are now working to exploit the new reality of an isolated and braindead superpower in irreversible political and societal decline. Von Bolton has led his oval office imbecile down the Happy Warmonger path and thrown the US into the bellicose Israel/Saudi camp—we will quickly find this is not an attractive place to be, and the camp members are effectively useless as allies.
Since we will get absolutely nowhere with this stale and rancid “Return of the American Century” haha, ramping up the rhetoric of warmongering and demonization will be Der Trumper’s only option going forward. Since this increasing bellicosity is utterly predictable, this has to be the goal of von Bolton. If he thinks any of this will somehow alter Iranian behavior, he is completely incompetent. The Dems, of course, cannot formulate any counter rhetoric ahead of the game and are three moves behind everywhere.
The stress on Der Trumper is going to become ever stronger, and he doesn’t do well under it—please keep those double cheeseburgers and cokes coming, WH chefs! It is quite remarkable that the equity markets continue to hold up under this new reality of Perpetual Uncertainty. It gives one a very clear understanding just how valuable that corporate tax cut was to our treasonous plutocrats and CEOs.
Let’s hope it’s just “global strategists” exploiting….
Yes and the market keeps on ticking in face of Trump’s latest pronouncement via tweet per the BBC:
So now he threatens a good part of the world to satisfy the Saudis and Israel – and of course, Mr Bolton. How do you suppose this will work out? This will complicate his retreat. It is just possible that with the dirt Putin has on him and his bellicosity he will abandon him, since Vlad knows Mueller has him by the short hairs from the Trump Tower fiasco and the already existing indictments. And do you really think Russia, China and the Europeans are going to walk away from all this and the tariffs with their heads hung low? The question may be when and how effective can he back out of his latest threats and how can he extricate Don Jr from a conspiracy Jr and he willingly accepted?
Maybe the one threat he is not watching will get him. His republican “friends”.
Let’s face it, this is Trump carrying out the marching orders from the OTHER foreign powers he’s also beholden to.
But for arguments sake, let’s say Bebe’s and the House of Saud ‘s joint marching orders work, it will more likely lead to Iran becoming a failed state rather than any kind of productive “regime change.” We’ll have another Syria, but with potential nukes.
Restoration of another phony Shah?
But whose phony Shah will it be?
If W’s middle eastern empire building attempt showed us anything, the days of installing loyal U.S. puppet governments are long over. There are too many other world players with vested international interests, several of whom just sowing chaos that ties up everyone else is enough.
Ah, but Trump is living in the past.
We can only have another Syria if the IRGC is deployed and mass murders protestors at the orders of Khameni. The “counter revolution” is when the mass murder happens, not “instigating” the regime change. There are already protests happening there, rural and urban, KSA involvement or not, though not at critical mass like what happened in Syria.
I for one want regime change, but we can’t be the ones to do it.
Indeed we can’t, but we also can’t be the ones trying to break that country on the behalf of Iran’s chief regional rivals and expect a good outcome.
Don’t misunderstand, I don’t support these sanctions because they’re forms of collective punishment against a population that has no real democratic control over its leaders. I also don’t support actions by the administration to carry out any assistance of protestors because I don’t trust them, and it’s possoble it would be counterproductive.
I just don’t like framing “regime change” as the culprit here in what accounts for the mass murder because it is to frame “regime change” as inherently bad. We should oppose the Iraq War because it was to commit mass murder, not because it toppled Saddam Hussein and “regime change”. Similarly, Syria isn’t the way it is because of people wishing to topple the government, but because the tyrant killed his own people and was propped up by outside forces.
I think the USA/CIA has a lot to do with how Syria is today. Agree with all your other points.
They do, just not in the way you’re implying. The US/CIA armed certain rebels, but mostly instructed them to fight terrorists and ISIS. The early origins of the program barely made a dent in terms of weaponry flowing into the conflict against Assad, which was never to overthrow him but bleed him and bring him to negotiating table (Assadism without Assad). The CIA further instituted an arms embargo on rebels which prevented them from obtaining anti-aircraft weapons, leaving them defenseless to Syrian barrel bombs and Russian air strikes. We made the conflict worse, but it’s because we intervened on behalf of our own interests of “fighting terrorism” which left The Nazi of the Levant in power. I think it is abundantly clear that had we intervened directly and forcefully the moment Assad police started shooting, the world would be better off. Or at very least the moment Assad’s planes bombed refugee camps (December 2012).
My principles are this: I don’t give a fuck who is arming rebels. The instigator is the guy killing people. The rebels wouldn’t need to be armed if the asshole in power didn’t shoot them. Period. Under no circumstances will I accept state arguments that you need to bomb your own country with airplanes. Never justified. Ever. Don’t care how many “terrorists” are conjured up.