Europe officially defies U.S. sanctions
Submitted by gjohnsit on Thu, 01/31/2019 - 5:11pm
This is the exact situation any sane politician/diplomat will have wanted to avoid.
You never want to be in a position of sanctioning your allies, but that's what happens when you ignore them.
European countries have joined forces to establish their own payment channel to Iran and circumvent United States sanctions, according to German broadcaster NDR.
Germany, France and Britain have been working for months to establish a measure allowing payments between Europe and Iran to continue, in the wake of the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement in May.
Now the European countries have officially established that channel, named INSTEX -- an acronym for Instrument in Support Of Trade Exchanges -- NDR reported Thursday, in a move likely to displease Washington.
...According to the NDR report, INSTEX will be based in Paris and managed by a German banking expert. A supervisory board will be run out of the UK.
Displeased is a nice way of putting it.
Our sanctions wall is leaking.
Meanwhile, Iraq's foreign minister Mohammed Ali al-Hakim had an interesting opinion on our Iran sanctions.
"These sanctions, the siege, or what is called the embargo, these are unilateral, not international. We are not obliged [to follow] them," he said, speaking to a gathering of journalists on Wednesday.
He said a number of "possibilities" had been suggested that could keep trade routes open with Iran, "including dealing in Iraqi dinars in bilateral trade".
Turkey is also discussing getting around our sanctions.
Comments
Overt "My way or the highway!" bullying
It is forcing the other countries to form new relationships with more stable partners. In many instances they will not quit those new relationships even if America relents. Soybeans for instance, the trade war with China is sending production away and will be diminished long-term.
The more we use our "big stick" the smaller it becomes.
All I can say is.....
good.
The bully, which is our government, is headed for a bloody nose.
The ride is under construction. You can see that corruption has taken over the building phase.
It has the backing of the duopoly and the capitalistic vultures.
Buckle up. This will be an awakening on the wrong side of the bed for all.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Actually it could be much more
than a bloody nose. If the dollar loses its status as the world's benchmark currency, I believe it will be drastically devalued (40%?) because of our chronic balance of payments deficit, and the house of cards US economy would crash. That's why Washington goes ballistic when there is a threat to the petrodollar. The EU has been largely complicit with our bullying in the past, but limits will eventually be reached. China, Russia, etc. have already had enough and China is making economic inroads into Africa and South America. We are trying to maintain hegemony by installing or facilitating right wing and borderline fascist regimes.
Yep,
and what's more the US is failing in its effort to change regimes and conduct war, it's putting a lot of effort into things that either achieve no results, or are counter-productive. The fall will come sooner than it needed to.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
and yet, they're totally down with our Venezuela coup.
huh.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
yes, makes me dizzy, can't understand the whole shebang/nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
Here's the reason:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/great-oil-paradox-too-many-095223769.html
A shortage of the kind of oil that Venezuela produces, leading to loss of profits to refiners. Hence they must secure that oil at the prices they want
No different from bananas in the days of Smedley Butler.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Venezuela's oil
is the heavy kind which is expensive to refine and bring to market. Venezuelan oil needs the price to be at or above $70 per barrel.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are the opposite. They can profit with very cheap oil prices.
NYCVG
The link claims that most US refiners need the heavy crude.
The oil comapnies export the light sweet but need the heavy sour to run their refineries. Or so the article claims. I'm not a petroleum Engineer.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Not sure yet
The European Parliament--which I believe tends to be conservative and pro-capital-growth--has issued its support for Guaido, but the 28 member states have NOT (yet?) followed suit.
Not sure what this means because the relationship between the states/countries and the Parliament is not clear to me. It could be that the Parliament's statement alone doesn't carry much weight--more like a recommendation or an exhortation to the countries to follow suit, which they're not doing.
It appears that the countries favor a contact group with a 90-day window in which to develop their responses to the VZ situation.
Now if they would all ignore Trump on Venezuela
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
What are sanctions anymore
but a bold attempt at theft? It's certainly not a stable business model.
Europe flipping the US a bird is about twenty years overdue.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
@dervish sanctions are today's
sanctions are today's description for what used to be called siege.
NYCVG
Sanctions, like wars, hurt the wrong people.
Last Sunday at the free-thinking church we attended in Amsterdam
some of the prayers and admonishments from the lectern were on behalf of dying children, whereby the responsibility for such deaths was apportioned to various causes in SJW-ish, politically correct fashion.
Notably missing from this politically correct list of causes were E.U. and NATO economic sanctions, embargoes, and wars, and Dutch participation in same.
sanctions are war
An economic war is a good way to cripple others and this is a method of choice of the U.S. and Israel to name a couple evil countries using them to cripple others. And as many above pointed out, it mostly hurts the wrong people. Yes I know they did it to get everyone to rise up against Maduro. For all the wrong reasons. You don't torture people until they see it your way if you expect it last.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Strange how these "free trade is always good" people
change their minds when big bucks are involved. I spoke to Venezuela above. What kind of oil does Iran produce? Does it compete with shale oil?
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Iran's oil
is relatively clean and easy to access.
Unlike US shale which has to be fracked out of the ground.
Iran and Qatar own a massive oil field in the sea between them.
Tar sands oil from Canada, fracked oil from the US Bakken, Oil from the Arctic, Venezuela's oil----all need higher oil prices to survive.
Advantage Iran. hence the hysterical war-like posture of the US towards Iran. Not about nuclear at all. OIL.
NYCVG
Is this defiance of the US
a vision of the future? As countries/organizations stand up to the US bullying, will more states ignore the overbearing dangerous military sales enterprise the US has become?
NYCVG
One can hope
this death and destruction economy based on wars, weapons and resource exploitation is bound to fail. The sooner other economies figure this out, the shorter the empire run will be. Financial manipulations will not effect the nations smart enough to build distance and alternatives as much.
Will US retaliate against EU companies using alternative?
Seems that European companies will fold if threatened by the US. They high tailed out of Iran immediately after the announcement of putting in sanctions.
Trump threatens EU
link