Trump Reimposes Sanctions on Iran. Now What?

• Trump Reimposes Sanctions on Iran. Now What?
  by Ishaan Tharoor, https://www.washingtonpost.com/
  Under the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, the United States agreed to relax sanctions on Iran. But the Trump administration has now begun to put them back in place, with the first batch to be reimposed Monday. Those sanctions target a range of economic sectors, including automobiles, gold, steel and other key metals. After 90 days, a heftier tranche of sanctions on Iran’s oil industry is set to go back into effect.
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  This has all been a fait accompli since May, when President Trump decided to formally renege on American commitments under the nuclear accord. The president rejected the assessments of U.N. monitors, who had repeatedly said Iran was in compliance with the terms of a deal that had placed strict curbs on its nuclear activities. He also dismissed the entreaties of numerous European allies, who wanted to preserve what they saw as a successful and hard-won nonproliferation pact.
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  Now, European efforts to shield European companies that may still want to do business in Iran — and thereby risk falling afoul of U.S. sanctions — are flagging. The chance that these firms may face “secondary sanctions” from Washington could stoke tensions between the United States and its Western allies; it has already compelled various prominent European energy companies to scale back or fully cut their operations in Iran.
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