What happens if Trump’s foreign enemies unite?

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani today called for greater ties with North Korea, as the hermit kingdom celebrates the 71st anniversary of the foundation of its republic.

The two nations are considered to be among the biggest threats to the US, with nuclear weapons at the heart of the problem. President Donald Trump has taken a more hard-line approach with Iran than with North Korea, pulling out of the 2015 international nuclear deal last year, but both countries are subject to stringent US sanctions. And they are not the only ones.

However, a number of nations worldwide are beginning to come out against this US strategy for enforcing foreign policy. Powers including Russia, China, Iran, Syria and Cuba “have sought ways to support each other in their common struggle”, says Newsweek.

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The magazine adds that “while Washington’s use of sanctions for political purposes far predates Trump’s time in the White House, the Republican leader has expanded the practice - and a number of these targets are fighting back”.

Common struggle

Rouhani today congratulated Kim Jong Un and spoke of the ties between their nations as Pyongyang’s leader marked the republic’s foundation on 9 September 1948, reports Iran’s MEHR news agency.

North Korea has also praised Iran’s anti-US struggle, during a meeting of officials from the two countries in Tehran last month.

In a further swipe at the Trump administration, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez last week tweeted that “US sanctions against Iran’s maritime entities are another violation of International Law”. The “coercive measures” prevent the movement of Iranian oil and affect the “brother peoples of Iran and Syria”, threatening peace in the region, he said.

Rodriguez’s Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, retweeted the message the following day, adding: “We salute Cuba and stand with it.”

And The Moscow Times reported that the Russian-backed administration in Crimea had offered Iran access to its ports in order to avoid the US sanctions on oil exports.

Tehran has also been looking to Asia to boost ties, says the South China Morning Post. The Iranian and Chinese foreign ministers were pictured embracing during a meeting last month in Beijing where the pair formalised the details of their Belt and Road projects.

The plan involves China investing up to $280bn in Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemicals sectors, according to the Petroleum Economist.

“This will include up to 5,000 Chinese security personnel on the ground in Iran to protect Chinese projects,” an Iranian source told the magazine.

Meanwhile, Washington has warned that companies dealing with the Syrian government could face sanctions. Yet more than a dozen nations including China, Cuba, Iran and Russia - as well as Venezuela, “the latest target of the Trump administration’s so-called maximum pressure campaign” - defied these threats to attend the recent Damascus International Fair, reports Newsweek.

And in the past two days, Chinese officials have met with North Korean and Russian officials to “shore up ties”, the magazine adds.

Tehran emboldened

Trump’s “strategy of exerting ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran is faltering as Tehran appears emboldened to stand up against the West and takes steps closer to building a nuclear bomb”, former US officials have told Business Insider.

Washington’s plan was to deprive Iran’s leadership “so badly that they eventually capitulate to the US’s wishes”, but instead Iran has announced its third major breach of the 2015 nuclear deal, “stating it would begin developing more advanced centrifuges that would speed up its uranium enrichment, and lift all limits on its nuclear research and development”, reports the news site.

What happens next?

The US under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Sigal Mandelker, yesterday warned that the US would “continue to put pressure on Iran”.

However, The Observer’s Julian Borger argues that “Trump is heading into the 2020 elections with no clear-cut foreign policy successes, some dramatic failures and a string of looming crises around the world that could undermine his bid for re-election”.

In recent weeks, the US president has signalled interest in talks with North Korea, Iran and China. Trump’s “instinct is to make an eye-catching deal”, so he could seize on any new agreement and “proclaim it deal of the century”, says Borger.

Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama’s former speechwriter and foreign policy adviser, tells the newspaper: “It is remarkable how much agency these countries have.

“Certainly, Iran, China and North Korea will be aware that anything they do will have an impact on the elections... They have a vote.”