Today has seen a curious coincidence that I have seen nobody else comment on regarding the status of the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal. On the one hand Iran has apparently now officially violated the agreement in terms of the amount of low level enriched uranium it has, going over the allowed limit, although it remains very far from obtaining in nuclear weapons. On the other the EU, more specifically and especially France and Germany, have gotten their alternative payment mechanism, Instex, operational. This has been set up to allow European companies to deal with Iran without using dollars or the US-controlled SWIFT clearing system.
However, it is only initially going to deal with non-sensitive items like food and pharmaceuticals, not other goods, at least not now. The Iranians have made it clear that for them to keep to the JCPOA the Europeans need to more fully offset the US sanctions. That is not happening, not at least now, although the possibility is there.
So, this may be too late, but maybe Iran will not get too far above the limits. Maybe there is still a chance to more seriously offset Trump's illegal sanctions.
Barkley Rosser
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