Authored by Peter Korzun via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The US withdrawal from the Iran deal (JCPOA) has not buried it. That agreement is still very much alive. Even the US’s closest allies have refused to follow suit. The Iranian foreign minister is going on a trip just to save it. Tehran has the backing of all the signatories to the JCPOA, except America. That list includes Russia, China, and the EU, which keeps on trying to find an arrangement.
What the US did manage was to deal a heavy blow to trans-Atlantic solidarity. Washington set a six-month deadline for European companies doing business in Iran to get out. They’ll have to either terminate their operations or face heavy penalties. This means that the US has now become the main threat to Europe’s economy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel slammed President Trump for his decision to pull out. The unofficial leader of Europe believes it “damages trust” in the global order. She is not alone. The UK and France have also admitted that they regret Trump’s move. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stated that European powers should not be Washington’s "vassals."
On May 11, the German chancellor discussed the situation with the Russian president in a phone conversation. There’ll be more talks on May 18 when Angela Merkel visits the Russian resort city of Sochi. In defiance of the US, Germany became the first EU country to begin the construction of its portion of the Nord Stream 2 gas project on May 3. It did so even before Sweden and Finland had agreed to permit the pipeline to pass through their territorial waters. The US is adamant in its opposition to Nord Stream 2. Washington does not shy away from twisting the arms of any allies who dare to see Russia’s stable and cheap energy supplies as an alternative to America’s more expensive liquefied gas that must be transported by sea.
The US-European relationship has been clouded by Washington’s plans to introduce tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from the EU. The German chancellor has pointed out on a number of occasions that the US and EU have been clashing more frequently, which indicates that a wider schism is opening up within the Western alliance.
European leaders will discuss the US withdrawal from the Iran deal, as well as trade policy, at an EU summit that will be held June 28-29 in Bulgaria, at which the US is expected to face “a united European front.” Meanwhile, the EU is prepared to introduce countermeasures in response to the US-imposed punitive restrictions against European companies doing business with Iran. The idea has been floated of adopting an EU-wide blocking statute to nullify any US sanctions. A trade war is just around the corner. Can security interests coincide when economic ones differ so much? Not a chance.
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