By Staff Writer
U.S. lawmakers called on Thursday for the Iranian Regime to be expelled from the main financial system that deals with international bank transfers, as the Donald Trump administration continues to reimpose sanctions on the Gulf country, following the US withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May.
A group of 16 Republican senators, led by Texas’s Ted Cruz, implored Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin to take “all necessary steps” to remove Iran from the SWIFT network, which allows global financial institutions to exchange information about banking transactions.
They wrote, in an open letter: “Quick robust enforcement will be critical for the administration’s maximum pressure strategy to succeed, both immediately to drain the Iranian regime’s resources for malign behaviour and as a signal of America’s commitment to maintaining the integrity of our sanctions architecture. The administration’s maximum pressure campaign will not succeed if the Islamic Republic remains connected to SWIFT.”
SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) is based in Belgium, but has US executives on its board. US federal law allows the Trump administration to take action against Iran’s central bank, as it is currently under terrorism and money laundering sanctions.
Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 nuclear accord, otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May and promised to reinstate the nuclear sanctions that had been lifted under the deal. The first round of sanctions came into force in August. More will follow in November.
The other signatories to the deal, including Britain, France and Germany, have not pulled out. The US Senators’ letter was sent just after the EU announced a $21 million financial support package for Iran to help keep the nuclear deal alive, following the withdrawal from Iran of many European companies.
It came just a day after German foreign minister Heiko Maas called for Europe to create an independent banking payments system, separate from the US, to maintain the nuclear deal, in an op-ed for the daily paper Handelsblatt.
He wrote:”In this situation, it is of strategic significance that we say clearly to Washington: we want to work together, but we will not allow you to act over our heads to our detriment. That is why it was right to legally protect European companies from sanctions,” he said. “That is why it is indispensable to strengthen European autonomy by setting up payment channels that are independent of the U.S., creating a European monetary fund and setting up an independent SWIFT system.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected this idea.