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EU Wants US to Exempt European Firms from Sanctions on Iran

EU Wants US to Exempt European Firms from Sanctions on Iran

More European companies leave Iran fearing US sanctions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vodoRobkwEk

The European Union has called on the U.S. not to punish European firms that trade with Iran, German daily Die Welt reported Thursday. In a letter to the U.S. officials, the EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini “appealed to the U.S. not to undertake any action” against European companies likely hit by U.S. sanctions following President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal last month.

The letter addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was also signed by foreign and finance ministers from Germany, France, and Britain, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle disclosed. According to media reports, President Trump is considering imposing secondary sanctions against foreign companies which continue doing business with Iran.

Keeping European companies in Iran is crucial to European attempts to keep the nuclear deal in place. Tehran has made Europe’s business involvement conditional to its compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement. “The cascade of decisions by EU companies to end their activities in Iran makes things much more complicated,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told visiting EU Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete.

German daily Die Welt published the details of the diplomatic communication:

In [ongoing] confrontation over the Iran deal, three largest European states and the EU have urged the U.S. government to exempt the bloc from sanctions against the Islamic Republic. “We expect as allies that the US will refrain from the measures that threaten European security interests,” said the letter of the foreign and finance ministers from Germany, France and Britain. European companies must be allowed to operate their legal businesses in Iran. The U.S. President Donald Trump has announced his country’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal and imposed sanctions against Iran, which can also hit European companies doing business in the country. The letter, dated June 4, was also signed by the EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and addressed to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. [Translation by the author]

Germany has been leading the charge to save the faltering nuclear deal. Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Russia and China in recent weeks to drum up support for her diplomatic efforts. Her position has been bolstered by EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the bloc’s Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini.

Earlier in May, Juncker had announced the plans to enact the so-called “blocking statute,” or set of laws that were to shield European companies operating in Iran from prosecution in the United States. As it turns out, that move may not be anything more than a bluff. As the UK business daily Financial Times reported on Wednesday, Mogherini’s letter is “an indication of concern that the EU will not be able to shield such companies from sanctions now that Washington has abandoned the Iran nuclear deal.”

Since early May, several leading European companies have folded their operations in Iran. This long list includes engineering conglomerate Siemens, oil giant Total, and car maker Peugeot.

Much to the dismay of Brussels, EU’s own lending arm, European Investment Bank, has decided to comply with the sanctions placed by President Trump. EIB’s decision further “limits the bloc’s ability to shield trade with Iran,” Forbes confirmed. “[B]ank’s fears that its ability to raise funds on international capital markets would suffer echoes the calculation made by other European firms quitting Iran rather than risk penalties and access to the much vaster U.S. market.” Reuters reported.

Unlike the politicians in Berlin and Brussels, European businesses seem to have correctly assessed Trump administration’s resolve on the issue of Iran. While the EU leaders scramble to save the deal, European companies are exiting Iran in droves to protect their U.S. business interests.

Video: Chancellor Merkel defends Iran deal during China visit

[Cover image via YouTube]

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Comments

No.

    pfg in reply to forksdad. | June 7, 2018 at 3:20 pm

    If the whole point of Trump’s withdrawal from that awful 2015 agreement is to hurt/injure the Iranian government, then Trump will – and rightly should – do everything in his power to achieve that end. Apparently Europeans only know of the existence of backbones by having read about them in books.

    Publius Redux in reply to forksdad. | June 7, 2018 at 5:27 pm

    Agreed. Oh and “EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini” Wtf?

    “Who bitch this is?”

    JohnSmith100 in reply to forksdad. | June 7, 2018 at 8:25 pm

    This is another case where we should firmly tell them hell no.

When Iran’s currency is turned to junk, the black market is all that will be left. These countries climbed on board a bad ‘deal’ hatched by traitor Barry. He is being shown for the devil he is.

    MattMusson in reply to Whitewall. | June 7, 2018 at 3:33 pm

    It is common knowledge that the Obama Admin sent Iran pallet loads of cash.

    How did Obama payoff the EU partners to agree to the deal?

      Matt_SE in reply to MattMusson. | June 7, 2018 at 5:34 pm

      “How did Obama payoff the EU partners to agree to the deal?”

      I would bet the usual way: with business contracts. Just like they got when Obama/Hillary murdered Gaddafi.

    4th armored div in reply to Whitewall. | June 7, 2018 at 4:01 pm

    Iran’s currency VS dollar 50,000 to 1.

    Europeeeuns think that they are still dealing with 0bama —
    SUUUHPRIZE!

    BTW since when have Europeeeuns supported USA on Jerusalem ?

    (Nevuh).

Look, America, if you just do us this one little thing, we can keep the pretend agreement in place that Iran never intended to honor. If life in Iran is a bit more tolerable, and we get a little richer, where’s the harm in that?

US to the corrupt globalist swine hogging the governance of the EU: drop dead.

Didn’t Obama promise that sanctions would be snapped back if Iran violated the “agreement”? Well they violated it by not disclosing their nuclear programs at the start. Obama didn’t lie again did he? Lying is his only skill and he has a silver tongue!

    4th armored div in reply to ConradCA. | June 7, 2018 at 4:07 pm

    Argyria
    Argyria or argyrosis is a condition caused by excessive exposure to chemical compounds of the element silver, or to silver dust.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria

      JohnSmith100 in reply to 4th armored div. | June 7, 2018 at 5:32 pm

      Before antibiotics, silver compounds served to control infections. Copper has similar properties. Silver collected in skin, turning people a blue-gray color, but looking like one was dead was preferable to being dead.

      As antibiotic resistance increases, we will be depending more on some of the older techniques to suppress infections. One example of this is that traditional stainless use is changing to copper or copper alloys which kill bacteria on contact.

      Colloidal silver is safer than many other forms, one example being putting a few drops of 1100 ppb under the tongue to bacteria in the throat. Do not ingest large amounts of any silver compound.

      Colloidal silver can also be used in sinus wash, but for that application Tea Tree oil is better.

      Walmart sells Tea Tree Oil (DO NOT buy from Amazon 🙂 )for about $8 for 2 fluid OZ in a small glass brown tinted bottle. Tea tree Oil penetrates the skin, killing bacteria. When using Tea Tree Oil, it is often desirable to make a 2% to 10% solution by cutting Tea Tree Oil with a vegetable oil. Tea Tree Oil should only be used topically, do not ingest.

Lenin is smiling from the grave.

They will sell Iran the trucks to deliver the parts for the missiles that will burn their cities to ash.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA…go fuck yourselves the EU!

You want to dance with the devil. Then suffer the consequences.

What gets me is how casually they asked for a waiver from the rules that everyone else has to play by. Noseblind.

And why does the woman in the pic look like she is transitioning to Full Burka? Is the new Euro fashion for their women to cover their hair? Or is her attire a concession to the Muslim Rape Gangs? Oh my bad, BBC Style Guide says that should read “Immigrant Outreach Orgs”.

Yup, I thought she smelled funny.

“Europe’s High Representative for Appeasement. If Federica Mogherini didn’t exist, the world’s autocrats would be trying to invent her.

As the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, she is a tireless advocate for engaging rogue states. Few diplomats though have pursued this kind of engagement with such moralizing puffery.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/view/articles/2018-01-09/federica-mogherini-europe-s-high-representative-for-appeasement

inspectorudy | June 7, 2018 at 4:48 pm

If ever there is a lesson on how to raise children the way Europe was treated and ended up is the exact opposite way to do it. After WWII we bailed out the entire world! That’s right, the US of A saved the world. We gave Europe the most aid and gave them financial deals that were like them winning the lottery. And as time went by they spent less and less on their own defense and became socialistic because they had all that extra money that they didn’t have to spend on defense. They became mushy on hard issues and now that Iran offers them a big shiny prize they are too blinded by the sparkle of the money to understand the long-term consequences of their foolishness. Charles Martel saved them once from the muslim horde in 732 AD but he is long gone. Who will step up next?

    Ragspierre in reply to inspectorudy. | June 7, 2018 at 8:19 pm

    Here’s an interesting factoid that I learned from the excellent presentatioin “Brexit; the movie”.

    Germany got about half of what the Brits got in Marshall Plan aide. But, by applying market economics, Germany completely eclipsed the Brits and became an economic powerhouse while GB wallowed in central planning post-war.

    Interesting, no…???

      Mac45 in reply to Ragspierre. | June 7, 2018 at 9:57 pm

      Actually, being the losers in WWII, Germany should not have gotten ANYTHING in aid from other countries. Germany ans Austria should have been divided up between the US and Britain, France not only provided little support for the war, but the vichy French government actually aided the Germans. Russia was entitled to no part of Germany or Austria because it conspired with Germany to circumvent the Treaty of Versailles and build an army as well as invade Poland along with Germany.

      What rebuilt the German economy was a combination of US aid, loans, most from US sources and money which German firms had hidden outside German prior to and during WWII. Most of the same people were running Germany in 1055 who were running it in 1935.

        Ragspierre in reply to Mac45. | June 7, 2018 at 10:51 pm

        NOTHING you said is true. As usual.

        Ludwig Erhard was the ANTI-T-rump. He transformed Germany in a few years because he let the German economy work using freedom and market economics.

          Mac45 in reply to Ragspierre. | June 8, 2018 at 12:38 pm

          Germany was a total wasteland, in 1945. Its industry and in most of its infrastructure was destroyed. It had know monetary reserves and was under foreign control for four years. So, the question is, where did Germany get the capital to rebuild? The answer is from three main sources. The first was the Marshall Plan and, later, the Mutual Security Act. The second source of income was private loans to German businesses, most of which came from the US and Argentina. The third was direct infusions of capital from outside Continental Germany. These infusions were mostly the return of assets hidden outside of Germany before and during WWII, by German businesses.

          You might really want to look into Ludwig and Germany’s “social market” economic principles. While Ludwig personally favored a more Laissez-faire capitalistic economy, the German government, of which he was a part, embarked on a classic welfare economy known as a social market economy. Here are the main attributes of this economic model, as outlined in Wikipedia:


          *The social market contains central elements of a free market economy such as private property, free foreign trade, exchange of goods, and free formation of prices.
          *In contrast to the situation in a free market economy, the state is not passive and actively implements regulative measures.[52] Some elements, such as pension insurance, universal health care and unemployment insurance are part of the social security system. These insurances are funded by a combination of employee contributions, employer contributions and government subsidies. The social policy objectives include employment, housing and education policies, as well as a socio-politically motivated balancing of the distribution of income growth. In addition, there are provisions to restrain the free market (e.g., anti-trust code, laws against the abuse of market power, etc.). These elements help to diminish many of the occurring problems of a free market economy.[53]” – Social market economy – Wikipedia.

          Ragspierre in reply to Ragspierre. | June 8, 2018 at 10:04 pm

          Amazing Wiki skills here…!!!

          Nothing Wiki told you refuted anything I posted. And a lot of what you posted is just insane lies, without the least support.

The Brits didn’t get free aid. They had to pay for what they got.

    tom_swift in reply to davod. | June 8, 2018 at 7:09 am

    Until they ran out of money. After that it was (relatively) free, but disguised somewhat.

JohnSmith100 | June 7, 2018 at 8:17 pm

Unless Europe takes rapid remedial action, their respective cultures will be entering a new dark age of brutality and ignorance.

As much as free traders would like us to believe that everyone wants to exist in a carefree, socialist global economy, that is simply not true. European nations have had consistently higher tariffs on US goods than the US i9mposed upon their goods, for decades. the same is true of Japan, China and most of the rest of the world. At least the portion of it whose citizens can actually afford to buy American goods. The nations of the EU have been making a bundle on exporting goods to US markets. The same is true of Japan and China. Even Canada and Mexico have greatly benefited from access ti the US market, which just happens to comprise 27% of the total global consumer market.

So, is it any wonder that the EU, which will be at far greater risk of a nuclear missile armed Iran than the US, would sacrifice the security of its people for short term profits from investment in Iran? Naw. Just business as usual for the Global Financial Establishment.

    Ragspierre in reply to Mac45. | June 8, 2018 at 4:43 am

    What kind of stupid lie is this…

    “As much as free traders would like us to believe that everyone wants to exist in a carefree, socialist global economy…”

    People who love market economics want absolute cut-throat competition. Not “carefree” but where you better care every hour about serving your market.

    Some idiots should never post on economics.

      Mac45 in reply to Ragspierre. | June 8, 2018 at 12:51 pm

      “People who love market economics want absolute cut-throat competition.”

      This is total BS. Free market manufacturers want monopolistic control over a market. The LESS competition they have to face, the better for their bottom line. Also, consumers want balanced control of an economy because it does not help them if their jobs move to an area where they can be done far cheaper.

      In any manufacturing economy, you have four major economic payers: manufacturers, consumers, distributors and financiers. Manufacturers want to be able to effectively compete within a market. If this requires government controls, then they are all for it. Consumers want to maximize their buying power. And, while the introduction of cheap imports does this, their buying power can also be seriously reduced by the loss of jobs. So, working consumers usually favor market controls which make it easier to get and hold employment while allowing consumer prices to be affordable. Distributors [traders] LOVE uncontrolled economic trade. Why? Because they make money no matter who produces an item. And the same goes for financiers. They need points of investment to make money and don’t really care what those points of investment are, as long as they show a return.

      Mac45 in reply to Ragspierre. | June 8, 2018 at 1:12 pm

      The basis of socialistic theories is that everyone involved is equal. The various models use various mechanisms to attempt to achieve this, but they all seek to impose absolute equality on those within the system.

      Free trade, on the other hand, assumes that there will be absolute equality among all the trading partners within the system. As this equality is assumed to exist, naturally, it does not have to be “imposed”. In order for free trade to be viable as a permanent practice, every trading partner has to end up with a negative balance of trade, or it will fail.

      What some people who label themselves as “free traders” actually are is predatory traders. They see trade as being beneficial only to their interests and expect that economic Darwinism will allow them to survive while others will perish. And, just like everyone else, they support the economic system which benefits them the most. It is always interesting to see the people, who demand a totally lazies-fair capitalistic system for their activities, scream the loudest when their wallet is gored by such practices.

        Ragspierre in reply to Mac45. | June 10, 2018 at 8:08 am

        “Free trade, on the other hand, assumes that there will be absolute equality among all the trading partners within the system.”

        That’s simply a lie. Cite to ANY economic authority that supports that nonsense, please.

The EU will now experience what Israel has experienced since its creation from the secondary boycotts imposed by the Arab League on companies seeking to do business in Israel.

Once again, another expression of Europe’s death wish. Sure, trade with the enemy. NO, NO and NO. Starve the SOBs.