TRUMP PULLS OUT OF IRAN AGREEMENT
New sanctions to hit Tehran as five powers vow to stay in pact
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is pulling the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, the most consequential foreign policy decision of his presidency, and will reinstate a punishing array of U.S. economic sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under the landmark 2015 accord.
Speaking from the White House, Trump said he would impose the “highest level of economic sanctions” on Iran. Countries or companies that continue to invest in or do business there could risk of violating U.S. sanctions, with vast political and economic repercussions.
The decision could isolate the
United States among its largest European allies, all of which had pleaded with Trump to keep the historic pact intact.
In an 11-minute address, Trump called the Iran deal “decaying and rotten,” but he did not offer any specifics of how he would replace it.
The White House said new sanctions would target Iran’s energy, petrochemical and financial sectors. That effectively takes the United States out of the agreement even though the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, repeatedly has found that Iran is complying with its requirements.
“We're out of the deal. We're out of the deal,” John Bolton, Trump’s new national security adviser, a longtime opponent of the accord, said emphatically after Trump’s address.
He said the “only sure way” to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons is to abandon the deal and craft a new pact that also restricts Iran’s support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program and its role fostering turmoil in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.
Trump faced a self-imposed May 12 deadline to renew waivers that eased sanctions on Iran’s central bank, which deals with Iran’s oil exports. Another set of sanctions, focused on more than 400 Iranian companies, individuals and sectors, is up for renewal July 11.
Bolton told reporters that U.S. sanctions in place before the agreement — including restrictions on new business ventures involving shipping, energy, gold, metals and other products — would begin immediately. He said more sanctions likely will be added.
Companies with existing contracts would be given 90 or 180 days, depending on the industry, to wind them down. Countries that buy oil from Iran will have to steadily lower imports. The Treasury Department will begin blacklisting Iranian banks and other entities by November.
Trump’s pull-out pleased U.S. allies in Israel and Saudi Arabia, which agreed with Trump that the deal gave Iran too much leeway to someday rebuild nuclear programs that could be used to produce a bomb.
Reinstating sanctions on Iran’s oil exports would most directly affect Europe, Japan and South Korea. But it probably would lead to a jump in oil prices and higher U.S. prices at the pump.
Trump’s decision could ratchet up tensions in the already volatile Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that Israel “fully supports” Trump’s decision.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his country would remain in the deal for now and open negotiations with the remaining signatories about preserving the accord. “If we can guarantee our interests, we will save” it,” he said on Iranian TV.
But he said he had ordered two Iranian atomic energy organizations to be ready to resume industrialscale uranium enrichment in several weeks if the negotiations are not successful.
Rouhani reiterated that Iran has complied with its obligations under the accord and that it was the United States that did not fulfill its commitments.
“I am sorry for the American people who are a great people but unfortunately administrated by people who are not wise,” he said.
Former President Barack Obama, who has rarely criticized Trump in public, staunchly defended what he considered a signature achievement for his administration. In a lengthy statement, he called Trump’s decision “misguided” and “a serious mistake.”
The other signatories to the Iran accord — Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany — vowed to continue to honor the agreement, although it’s not clear how they will negotiate the web of U.S. sanctions.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Frederica Mogherini, said the bloc would do all it could to maintain the pact. “It belongs to the entire international community,” she told reporters in Rome. “The European Union is determined to preserve it.”
Turkey, a NATO ally, vowed to defy the sanctions. It wasn’t immediately clear if Russia, China and other major trading partners would also attempt to buck the sanctions.
noah.bierman@latimes.com