President Biden put Iran on notice and explained why he has not spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping since taking office in a foreign policy-heavy segment of the traditional pre-Super Bowl presidential interview,
Biden told CBS News, “No,” when asked if he would lift sanctions former President Donald Trump slapped on Iran when he pulled the United States out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal. He simply nodded his head when pressed on whether Tehran would first have to stop enriching uranium, which the country confirmed it had resumed doing last month, before renewed talks over the accord can start.
Biden was vice president when former President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry, helped broker the 2015 deal, in which sanctions imposed on Iran by five countries were relaxed as an incentive for Iran to limit its nuclear program.
But Iran is now arguing that since the U.S. “violated the deal,” “it is for the United States to return to the deal, to implement its obligations,” according to Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.
“The entire nuclear deal is nonnegotiable because it was fully negotiated,” Zarif told CNN on Sunday, echoing an earlier statement from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “We need to implement something that we negotiated. We do not buy the horse twice.”
In the Sunday interview with this year’s Super Bowl broadcaster, CBS, Biden also justified his delay in speaking with Xi by saying they “haven’t had occasion to talk to one another yet.”
“There’s no reason not to call him,” Biden said.
Biden, who spent time with the Chinese president as vice president, moved into the White House on Jan. 20 as the country grappled with the public health and economic challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. But his call sheet with foreign dignitaries so far still includes the likes of Russia’s Vladimir Putin to Argentina’s Alberto Fernandez.
Although Biden and Xi haven’t spoken directly, Xi sent a clear trade-related message during last month’s World Economic Forum in Davos to Washington, D.C. In his first remarks since Biden’s inauguration, Xi warned that building “small circles” or beginning “a new Cold War” would “only push the world into division,” “even confrontation.”
In the CBS interview, Biden described Xi as “very bright” and “tough,” though Biden said, “He doesn’t have a democratic, small ‘D,’ bone in his body.”
“I’ve said to him all along we need not have a conflict, but there’s going to be extreme competition,” Biden said. “I’m not going to do it the way Trump did. We’re going to focus on international rules of the road.”
Biden administration officials have been pushed on why the president hasn’t spoken with Xi. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters this month that aides were working with allies and partners to determine the best time for a call.
