Sen. Tom Cotton | Facebook
Sen. Tom Cotton | Facebook
A group of 15 GOP senators wrote a letter to major businesses and financial organizations telling them not to interact with Iranian businesses if the Biden administration removes sanctions to bring to life the 2015 nuclear deal of Iran.
The letter was sent to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Financial Services Forum and Business Roundtable and some of the members who signed the letter include Sens. Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Marsha Blackburn.
"The international business community shouldn’t view the removal of U.S. sanctions on Iran as a lucrative opportunity. Reentering the Iranian market would make businesses complicit in the regime’s support of terrorism," Sen. Tom Cotton wrote in a Facebook post on May 12.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is denounced in the letter, a plan that President Barack Obama negotiated with Iran and other world superpowers in 2015.
"Recognizing that the agreement paved Iran's path to nuclear weapons, President Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement and pursued a strategy of 'maximum pressure' to force a change in Iranian behavior," the letter said, told by Fox Business News. "Since the JCPOA was not a legally binding instrument under U.S. or international law, the sanctions waived in the JCPOA were re-imposed by the United States in 2018, resulting in more than 100 international companies and organizations terminating or curtailing business with the Iranian regime to avoid U.S. sanctions."
Republicans worry that the Biden administration "has ambitions to toss aside the progress of the maximum pressure campaign and return to a JCPOA-like framework."
"In fact, U.S. negotiators may begin offering sanctions relief even before Iran returns to compliance with the feeble nuclear agreement and regardless of whether the administration has addressed the full scope of Iran's malign activities or obtained the release of U.S. hostages in Iran," the letter states. "We kindly ask that you distribute this correspondence to your member companies."
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