We are not worried. You should not be either.
We have heard this morning that President Donald Trump is not expected to certify Iran’s compliance of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1 countries.
This should be viewed for what it is; it is a domestic American issue with absolutely no immediate impact on the JCPOA itself.
Considering that Donald Trump ran a presidential campaign on attacking the deal, this does not come at all as a surprise by any stretch of the imagination.
The immediate impact of this is that Congress will have 60 days to decide whether to re-impose sanctions. Such a scenario is highly unlikely.
We encourage our clients to stick to the following facts:
- We expect Donald Trump to call for the deal “to be fixed” and not for sanctions to be re-imposed. What “fixed” means is likely to be political in nature and have little or no effect on how trade agreements are currently signed.
- The US Secretary of State, Rex W. Tillerson and the US Defence Secretary, James Mattis are not in favour of the deal being scrapped.
- Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and the European Union generally are behind the deal. They have openly declared their support in the last few days and weeks.
- All parties to the JCPOA, including Donald Trump, agree that Iran is not in breach of the JCPOA. Donald Trump believes Iran is not adhering to the “spirit” of the deal.
- International companies such as Total have openly declared that they will stick to their investments within Iran, regardless of the lack of certification by Donald Trump.
In the light of the above, neither we nor any of our clients should be worried about this wholly expected political move.
We will update all clients as matters progress.
For more information, please contact Tom Keya on 020 7065 1848 or Maral Zarrinmehr on 020 7065 1814.