President Trump’s threat to impose sanctions on nations that invest in Iran is an irritating attempt to treat European nations as “vassals,” according to French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire.
“Do we want to be vassals blindly following the decisions made by the U.S. so that it can become the world economic police?” Le Maire told France24. “Or do we want us, Europeans, to say that we have our own economic interests? We want to keep on doing business with Iran in the frame of a strategic deal which was agreed and where Iran abandons its nuclear weapons.”
Trump troubled key European allies by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, after negotiators failed to agree on a plan to impose additional restrictions on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. His subsequent refusal to waive economic sanctions targeting Iran puts European companies that invest in the country at risk of being blackballed by the U.S.
“We have to work among ourselves in Europe to defend our economic sovereignty,” Le Maire said.
Diplomats from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany plan to meet next week to discuss possible responses to the president’s decision. European officials aren’t hiding their frustration with Trump, in the meantime. Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s top diplomat, was biting in her commentary on Trump, particularly by the standards of diplomatic rhetoric.
“It seems that screaming, shouting, insulting and bullying, systematically destroying and dismantling everything that is already in place, is the mood of our times,” Mogherini said in an address to the E.U. on Friday, without mentioning Trump by name. “I have the impression that this impulse to destroy is not leading us anywhere good. It is not solving even one of the problems we need to face, and they are many.”
Foreign companies will have no choice but to go along with Trump’s sanctions effort, according to leading Republican lawmakers, even if European leaders decide to protect them from American fines. That’s because, they predict, the threat of losing access to the U.S. banking system is too great a risk to bear. So, Le Maire suggested that European nations should find a way to offset the Treasury Department’s influence over the global economy.
“[W]hat can we do to give Europe more financial tools allowing it to be independent from the United States?” he said. “Why don’t we create the same type of agency in Europe, capable of following the activities of foreign companies and checking if they are respecting European decisions?”
