Following its exit from the Iran nuclear deal, the US is willing to negotiate with European allies on a new agreement, but unwilling to waive sanctions set for re-imposition later this year, key Trump administration officials told Congress this week.
"We will certainly continue to work with our European" partners, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday. "We're committed to developing a diplomatic solution that gets there."
But sanctions relief will not be part of that effort, at least partly due to reluctance among European leaders to take any steps to penalize Iran, such as the imposition of new sanctions in response to missile testing.
"Their actual willingness to do that I think we can all agree it didn't happen," Pompeo said.
On Tuesday, Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin told a Senate appropriations committee that European and Asian allies would be subject to primary and secondary sanctions for commercial dealings with Iran.
"We've already communicated with our European partners, both through Secretary Pompeo and myself, that we will be enforcing the secondary sanctions," Mnuchin said.
Amy Myers Jaffe, director of the Council on Foreign Relations' energy security and climate change program, said the tactic of offering no relief from sanctions makes sense ahead of possible negotiations.
"If I was going into a negotiation with the Iranians of all people and I wanted to convince them that they have to take the actions that I want them to take I would say there's not going to be any waivers," Myers Jaffe said. "It's up to the Iranians if there's going to be any waivers."
This is why, she said, the Trump administration will re-impose sanctions on November 5.
"Why wait 180 days? Because you're looking for a negotiation," Myers Jaffe said.
On May 8, President Donald Trump announced the US was exiting the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and would reinstate sanctions lifted in January 2016 as part of the deal.
In a speech Monday, Pompeo laid out the list of changes the Trump administration was seeking from Iran, including ending support for terrorist groups and withdrawing from Syria.
"These are a set of simple requirements that the Iranian regime could quite easily comply with, and it would benefit the Iranian people to an enormous extent," Pompeo told reporters Tuesday.
The sanctions will remove less than 500,000 b/d of oil supply from the global market by the November enforcement deadline, according an S&P Global Platts survey of analysts.
The EU announced Friday a series of measures aimed at shielding companies across the bloc operating in Iran from the re-imposed US sanctions and protecting oil trade with OPEC's third largest producer.
France's Total said May 16 it had halted plans to help develop Iran's giant South Pars natural gas field as it seeks to clarify whether the investment can avoid falling foul of US sanctions.
Iran has boosted its oil production by nearly 1 million b/d since the nuclear deal lifted Western sanctions in January 2016. It produced 3.83 million b/d in April, according to the latest Platts OPEC survey.
