President Trump levies fresh sanctions with Iran resulting in ‘permanent closure’ of diplomacy between the two countries.
What We Know:
- On Monday, Trump announced new sanctions on Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He has officially denied Khamemei and the Iranian military from access to financial resources and any assets they have under U.S. jurisdiction.
- The issues soon made it to social media as the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called Trump’s measures “outrageous and idiotic.” He also said the White House was suffering from “mental illness.” Per usual, Trump fired back on Twitter. He wrote, “…Iran’s very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.”
- The initial issues arose from Iran shooting down a U.S surveillance drone. But the sanctions came as an effort to discourage the development of nuclear weapons and supporting militant groups. There have also been tensions behind Trump pulling out of a nuclear deal that was arranged in 2015.
- Iran was abiding by the terms in the deal but Trump recently pulled out because he felt the terms were too soft. He also feels that even though the U.S. pulled out, Iran should still abide by the deal. Iran has since made threats to breach the uranium limit, but Trump is willing to negotiate to avoid that.
This story is developing as we see if the two countries can find common ground.
