The European Union, China and Russia are setting up a backchannel to undermine U.S. sanctions on Iran and keep Tehran in the Obama-era nuclear deal, officials said.
The EU’s external affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, said Tuesday that a so-called special purpose vehicle will carry payments related to Iran’s exports and imports so long as firms conform to the union’s laws, The Guardian reports.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ripped into the decision on Wednesday.
“To continue to create mechanisms to fund the world’s largest state sponsor of terror is disastrous policy and I hope they will reconsider it,” Pompeo said on “CBS This Morning.”
“These sanctions will be effective, they are effective, and come November 4 they will be even more effective,” Pompeo added.
The EU has been critical of the U.S. after President Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran, the second wave of which are set to take effect in November.
The EU has threatened to sanction European firms that try to follow U.S. policy on Iran and has dedicated aid to Tehran.
Pompeo also said on Wednesday that European firms are “voting with their checkbooks” and abandoning Iran, regardless of EU threats.
In his remarks to the United Nations Tuesday, Trump tore into Iran, saying that the U.S. will wage a “campaign fo economic pressure” to stop it from advancing its “bloody agenda.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also said before the U.N. that Trump has tendencies “resembling a Nazi disposition” and called the sanctions “economic terrorism.”