President Trump Suggests Using ‘Snapback’ Mechanism to Impose Sanctions on Iran

TRUNEWS with RICK WILES During a press conference Saturday at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., President Donald Trump told reporters his administration is ready to act unilaterally to re-impose sanctions on the Iranian government following the UN vote rejecting an extension of a weapons embargo against the Islamic Republic. Referring to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, from which he withdrew the U.S. earlier in his presidency, he said: “We’ll be doing a snapback. You’ll be watching it next week.” Although it withdrew from the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, the U.S. remains a “participant.” This allows Washington to unilaterally reimpose all sanctions on the Islamic Republic if it declares Tehran is in violation of its terms. Although such a move is messy – both legally and diplomatically – the U.S. is able to back it up with sanctions on countries that decide to trade with Iran in violation of the original UN sanctions. The president was also asked if he will participate in a video summit to be hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the subject of the UN arms embargo on Iran. He responded that he will likely not participate, adding: “I think we want to wait until after the election. Look, Iran wants me to lose so badly, because if they do – you know, Iran is a whole different ballgame right now. They haven’t been sponsoring terror because they don’t have very much money to sponsor terror, and they know we just captured four Iranian ships, as you know, and we brought them into Houston. They were going to Venezuela; they’re not supposed to be doing that. Iran would love to have me defeated.” Iranian government officials hailed the UN Security Council vote in which just the U.S. and the Dominican Republic voted to extend the arms embargo as a “humiliating defeat.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi told reporters “America has never been so isolated” in the past 75 years of the UN. The European nations on the Security Council abstained from voting on an extension of the arms embargo. They said their priority at this time is to preserve the JCPOA, adding that an indefinite extension threatened to scuttle the deal. Only Russia and China opposed the resolution. (Photo Credit: The White House) www.trunews.com