On Wednesday 5 September, a member of the US Department of State said that Europeans should adopt new sanctions with regard to Iran – due, in particular, to the country's harmful influence on the region.
After leaving the nuclear deal, the US reintroduced new sanctions against Tehran. America intends to step up pressure until the Iranians agree to negotiate a new comprehensive deal.
"The EU agrees that they must respond to Iranian malign activities with respect to sponsorship of terrorism, assassination attempts, human rights atrocities, etc. We are looking for ways to work on that and to see what responses the Europeans have in mind", this representative of the US Department of State said. "If you want to respond, you should respond. Speaking is not a response, it is just air. Words are just air."
The EU has already organised several political meetings with Iran, notably on Yemen and human rights, but thus far without any concrete result.
When questioned about the EU's Blocking Statute, which was set up to counter the extraterritorial effect of the US sanctions against Iran (see EUROPE 12077), this US State official appeared tough.
"The Blocking Statute is unhelpful", he said, before making a comparison with the EU. "We don’t tell companies what to do (…) We have a sovereign right not to have companies that are doing business with our enemy have access to our financial system. It is our dollar and we have a sovereign right to decide who gets to transact in the dollar", he said, expressing his view that the Blocking Statute "is taking away the free right of European companies to make a choice: ‘Do we want to maintain relationships with Iran? Or do we want to maintain relationships with the US?’ And if the answer is ‘we want to maintain relationships with the US’, I don’t think the US should be punished for that by the EU".
Because of the extraterritorial effect of its measures, Washington in reality leaves little room for manoeuvre to the foreign companies that incur heavy sanctions if they continue trading with Iran.
Nord Stream II in question
The US official also spoke about the sanctions against Russia. In his view, there is "tremendous transatlantic cooperation in respect to sanctions on Russia". "We are working with the European allies to ensure (Russia's threats) are addressed in a unified fashion. The key is to maintain transatlantic cooperation", he underlined.
The Americans are concerned about the risk of disunity among Europeans, and Europeans should strengthen their sanctions against Moscow in the coming weeks. "We note that the global threat that Russia represents is increasing", this US representative stated.
Measures could also be taken against energy projects and the Nord Stream II project, or the companies participating in it, could be concerned. "The Administration's position is clear. We are opposed to Nord Stream II. Russia has proved to use energy as a weapon and we believe Nord Stream’s impact will help destabilise Ukraine. It will cut off at least $2bn from the Ukrainian government's budget", the US official said. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)