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Germany: US threatens Europe’s economy over Iran nuclear deal

January 17, 2020 at 4:21 am

European Union flags are seen waving outside the EU Commission Building at night in Brussels, Belgium on 20 December 2019. [ Dursun Aydemir – Anadolu Agency]

United States (US) has threatened to impose 25 per cent of tariffs on all European car exports if the European Union (EU) had continued to support Iran’s nuclear deal, German defence minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, announced yesterday.

Speaking at a press conference in Britain’s London, Kramp-Karrenbauer, said that the US President Donald Trump had “secretly” warned France, Germany and the UK that the US would impose a 25 per cent tariffs on European cars if the European countries did not abandon the Iranian nuclear deal reached in the Austrian capital of Vienna in 2015.

Read: Families want compensation for downed Ukrainian plane 

“This expression or threat, as you will, does exist,” she reiterated.

Kramp-Karrenbauer remarks came following a Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 plane was shot down last week outside Tehran, leaving all 176 crew and passengers dead.

Relations between Tehran and Washington have strained since the US pulled out last year from the 2015 nuclear deal, which curbed Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from crippling economic sanctions. The tensions were heightened after a recent US drone strike killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, who the White House accused him of plotting an earlier embassy attack in Iraq and planning to carry out attacks on US diplomats and service members in Iraq and the region.