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Trump said, "we will not turn our eyes away from a regime that sings death to the U.S. and threatens genocide against the Jewish people."
United States President Donald Trump Tuesday defended sanctions against Iran, as well as the decision to withdraw the United States from the nuclear treaty, arguing that the Persian nation is "the main state sponsor of terrorism."
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“My administration has acted decisively to confront the world’s leading state sponsor of terror: the radical regime in Iran,” Trump said at the 2019 State of the Union address to the Congress, adding that “to ensure this corrupt dictatorship never acquires nuclear weapons, I withdrew the U.S. from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. And last fall, we put in place the toughest sanctions ever imposed on a country.”
In May 2018, Washington withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement, signed by Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and China, a multilateral deal which aims at limiting the development of nuclear weapons in Iran in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.
Once released from the commitments of that agreement, President Trump announced a new wave of sanctions on Iran which prohibit U.S. dollar purchase by the Government of Iran, the trade of Iranian gold or precious metals, and the sale of Iran metals such as aluminum and steel.
The U.S. sanctions also include the prohibition of companies to do business with Iranian industries related to the automotive sector and commercial aviation.
Trump's Iran sanctions don't prevent #Iran from nuclear weapons, they hurt ordinary Iranians who need medicine, food, and trade. pic.twitter.com/cgdVrkl9QO
— Win Without War (@WinWithoutWar) February 6, 2019
President Trump reaffirmed the decision to impose sanctions saying that "we will not turn our eyes away from a regime that sings death to the U.S. and threatens genocide against the Jewish people."
In response to Trump's accusations, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tuesday that the United States supports those who ruin the Middle East.
“Iranians... are commemorating 40 years of progress despite US pressure, just as Donald Trump again makes accusations against us. U.S. hostility has led it to support dictators, butchers & extremists, who've only brought ruin to our region,” Zarif wrote in a Twitter post.
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