President Trump pledged to continue tightening economic sanctions on Iran, citing a recent attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities as evidence of the need to cut off funding for the regime.
“The United States does not seek conflict with any other nation,” Trump said during his address Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “We desire peace, cooperation, and mutual gain with all. But I will never fail to defend America’s interests.”
U.S. and European allies have blamed Iran for the Sept. 14 attack on two facilities run by Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, Aramco. The incident, which the U.S. believes was launched directly from Iran, spurred speculation that Trump might order a retaliatory military strike. But Trump cited the incident to prod defenders of the 2015 nuclear deal to increase their own pressure on the regime.
“No responsible government should subsidize Iran’s bloodlust,” Trump said.
Trump has struggled to convince western European allies to join his maximum pressure sanctions strategy against Iran, a campaign launched after the president withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last year. The three European signatories to the deal — France, Germany, and the United Kingdom — believe the pact defused a nuclear crisis in the Middle East, and so they have urged Tehran to remain in the deal while trying to find a way to deliver economic relief to Iran.
Trump, who seemed open to extending Iran a “letter of credit” last month following the G-7 Summit in France, shot down the idea of any sanctions relief.
“As long as Iran’s menacing behavior continues, sanctions will not be lifted,” Trump said. “They will be tightened.”
Iran responded to the tightening of U.S. sanctions in May with a series of attacks on foreign-flagged oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, followed by the regime’s first public violations of the nuclear deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who helped negotiate the deal in 2015 and has declared that Iran won’t allow international shipping through the Straits of Hormuz if U.S. sanctions on the oil industry aren’t lifted, is expected to take a defiant tone during his own address at the U.N. this week.
“Our nation is a nation of resistance, perseverance, and wants all sides to return to their commitments and to the law,” Rouhani said Monday, per state-run media.
Trump, calling for the Iranian leaders to negotiate a new agreement that would put additional restrictions on the regime’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program, maintained that such defiance will backfire.
“Iran’s leaders will have turned a proud nation into just another cautionary tale of what happens when a ruling class abandons its people and embarks on a crusade for personal power and riches,” he said.
