President Donald Trump’s hard exit from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was followed by a hard message for Europe: The United States will use sanctions to coerce its allies to shut their economic doors to Iran. Trump not only chose to violate a multilateral agreement, but his administration now aims to implode it by obstructing European business ties with Iran. In addition, the United States has also vowed to impose harmful trade tariffs on European allies. Trump is in effect threatening a trade war with Europe through tariffs and the weaponization of U.S. sanctions. Europe is now forced to respond and faces a dilemma of balancing its fundamental right to sovereignty against the risk of further damaging the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Following Trump’s announcement, background briefings from the State Department and statements from the U.S. Treasury Department made it clear that Washington intended to reimpose the U.S. sanctions eased under the nuclear deal and strictly enforce U.S. secondary sanctions against global companies trading with Iran. The newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Germany duly tweeted an undiplomatic warning to German companies to wind down operations in Iran “immediately.”