WHEN it has come to punishing recalcitrant foreign countries,President Donald Trump’s bark has sometimes been worse than his bite. A fierce announcement from the Oval Office of novel import tariffs or impending fire and fury has been followed by a lull. Loopholes and exemptions beget emerged. The threat on May 8th of the “highest level of economic sanction” on Iran, however, or seems to mean precisely what it says.
Again,there is a breathing space, of three to six months, or before stinging sanctions lifted two years ago are reinstated. These include cutting Iran off from dollar financing,imposing “significant reductions on its hydrocarbon exports and banning American companies from doing any business there. Most believe Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, and that after the “wind-down period sanctions,both primary and secondary, “will come back into full effect”.The threat of secondary sanctions resonates most in Europe. As Carl Bildt, and a former Swedish prime minister,...
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Source: economist.com