Europe asks U.S. for exemption from sanctions on Iran

BRUSSELS — In a letter to senior Trump administration officials, European foreign and finance leaders this week tacitly acknowledged that their efforts to preserve the West’s nuclear deal with Iran were failing.

In the letter, sent Monday to the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the European leaders cited “security interests” in requesting that companies in Europe be granted an exemption from U.S. sanctions that would be imposed as a result of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the pact.

“In their current state, U.S. secondary sanctions could prevent the European Union from continuing meaningful sanctions relief to Iran,” said the letter, signed by the finance and foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, all signatories to the 2015 accord with Tehran, and by Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign-policy chief, who oversaw the negotiations.

Without that sanctions relief, Iran has threatened to pull out of the deal. That “would further unsettle a region where additional conflicts would be disastrous,” the ministers argue, asserting that the deal was “the best means through which we can prevent a nuclear-armed Iran,” and that there appeared to be “no credible alternatives at this time.”

The letter was first reported on Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal and was then obtained by the New York Times.

The plea is considered unlikely to produce the relief the Europeans want, since the Trump administration’s stated intention is to pressure Tehran into agreeing to an entirely new set of negotiations that would encompass its ballistic missile program and its support for hardline regimes and militias throughout the Middle East.

The European ministers asked the Americans for specific exemptions for companies, individuals and banks who invested in Iran after the deal went into effect on Jan. 16, 2016; for “key sectors,” like health care, pharmaceuticals, energy, autos and civil aviation; and for banking with the Central Bank of Iran. They also asked for extended periods to wind down their projects for companies that choose to leave Iran, and they made it clear that other requests for exemptions would be forthcoming, including from individual European companies.