Trump says firms doing business in Iran to be barred from US as sanctions hit

Beirut/London (Reuters): Companies doing business with Iran will be barred from the United States, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, as new US sanctions took effect despite pleas from Washington’s allies.

Iran dismissed a last-minute offer from the Trump administration for talks, saying it could not negotiate while Washington had reneged on a 2015 deal to lift sanctions in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump decided this year to pull out of the agreement, ignoring pleas from the other world powers that had co-sponsored the deal, including Washington’s main European allies Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China.

European countries, hoping to persuade Tehran to continue to respect the deal, have promised to try to lessen the blow of sanctions and to urge their firms not to pull out. But that has proven difficult: European companies have quit Iran, arguing that they cannot risk their US business.

“These are the most biting sanctions ever imposed, and in November they ratchet up to yet another level. Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States. I am asking for WORLD PEACE, nothing less!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif criticised Trump’s tweet as a tired cliché and denounced “US unilateralism.”

“And it is not the first time that a warmonger claims he is waging war for ‘world peace’,” Zarif tweeted.

White House national security adviser John Bolton said on Monday Iran’s only chance of escaping sanctions would be to take up an offer to negotiate with Trump for a tougher deal.

“If the ayatollahs want to get out from under the squeeze, they should come and sit down. The pressure will not relent while the negotiations go on,” Bolton, one of the administration’s main hawks on Iran, told Fox News.

On Tuesday, Bolton said the sanctions were already working, deterring European companies: “The European governments are still holding to the nuclear deal, but honestly their businesses are running from it as fast as they can so that the effect of the American sanctions really is proceeding regardless.”

Few American companies do much business in Iran so the impact of sanctions mainly stems from Washington’s ability to block European and Asian firms from trading there.

Among large European companies that have suspended plans to invest in Iran are France’s oil major Total and its big carmakers PSA and Renault.

“We have ceased our already restricted activities in Iran in accordance with the applicable sanctions”, said German car and truck manufacturer Daimler.

Washington accepts that Iran has complied with the terms of the 2015 deal reached under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, but says the agreement is flawed because it is not strict enough. Iran says it will continue to abide by the deal for now, if other countries can help protect it from the economic impact of Washington’s decision to pull out.

Tuesday’s sanctions target Iran’s purchases of US dollars, metals trading, coal, industrial software and its auto sector. Global oil prices rose on Tuesday on concern sanctions could cut world supply, although the toughest measures targeting Iran’s oil exports do not take effect for four more months.