Five world powers and Germany signed a nuclear agreement with Iran in 2015 called the Join Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), informally known as Iran nuclear deal, to put some limitations on Iran’s nuclear program in return of removing international and unilateral US sanction on Iran.
However, former US President Donald Trump ceased US participation to the deal in 2018 without any founded reason, resuming all sanctions lifted by the JCPOA and adding some more.
The US move was followed by harsh criticism by other participants of the nuclear deal, including Europeans, but Britain, France and Germany made in fact no practical efforts to maintain Iran’s economic interests from the deal.
Although Europeans raised some proposals to keep its financial channel with Iran alive, none was operational due to Europeans inaction and a lack of the will to practically oppose US sanctions.
A plethora of European companies entering Iran for economic activity, left the country and majority of European companies were not willing to risk being trapped in US sanctions.
Iran’s foreign trade with Europe which had increased to 20 billion dollars and above in 2017 and 2018, suddenly dropped to 9 billion dollars by the end of 2018 and to 700 million dollars in 2019.
In the current situation that the US under Joe Biden’s presidency is apparently willing to rejoin the JCPOA, there are some issues that deserve consideration.
Firstly, the European participants to the deal seem to have deliberately closed they eyes on Iran’s rightful concern over the future of the deal. None of European signatories of the deal have a proposal on how the US should give assurances to Iran that no future US administration could do what Trump did with the deal.
Secondly, Biden and his advisors claim that Trump-made wall of sanction was so high that they couldn’t remove over one third of the 1500 sanctions imposed in addition to those lifted by the JCPOA. What’s more, Biden has not put US addiction to sanctions and have event added several other sanctions since he has taken office.
Thirdly, Iran has no confidence what the next US administration would do regarding a potential revived JCPOA, especially when many republicans and even some democrats in the US have acknowledged that any potential agreement signed by Biden, could be easily cancelled by a next president.
Taking the above-mentioned into consideration, Britain, France, and Germany, at least to encourage Iran to resume the JCPOA revival talks, should make their practical solution clear for providing Iran’s long-term economic interests, especially in case of a potential US withdrawal.