A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and the Senate on Monday introduced a bill that would make a law authorizing sanctions on Iran permanent.
The 1996 Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) gives the president the authority to impose sanctions on Iran and needs to be continuously renewed by Congress. The legislation introduced Monday, the Solidifying Iran Sanction Act, would get rid of the ISA’s sunset clause.
In the House, the bill was introduced by Rep. Michelle Steele (R-CA) and so far has 24 cosponsors, including 16 Republicans and 8 Democrats. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-CA), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is one of the cosponsors.
“This bill takes the long overdue step of striking the arbitrary sunset from the law, so that sanctions will only be lifted if Iran stops its threatening behavior. Iran can’t run out the clock on US law,” McCaul said.
The Senate’s version of the bill was led by Senators Tim Scott (R-SC), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Bill Hagerty (R- TN), and Jacky Rosen (D-NV).
The introduction of the legislation comes after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged that US sanctions on Iran have caused a “real economic crisis” but haven’t changed the behavior of the government, meaning the sanctions are doing little but hurting ordinary Iranians.
History has shown that US sanctions do little to change the targeted government and always hurt civilians. In February, UN experts said that more Iranians are dying from thalassemia, a congenital blood disorder, due to Western sanctions that deprive them of specialized medicines and the ingredients to make them.
Huh. I thought it already was.
Its impossible to sanction a Country that is a player in the BRI.
U.S. is under a mountain of debt and a cash crunch and a dollar crisis is coming in the near future. They aren’t producing anything domestically to have any value for exporting,
Iran on the other-hand will be joining BRICS, has a strong relations with the largest economic power like China. And in few years no one will give a damn about permeant sanctions. They’ll be fine.
The US exports about $250 billion worth of stuff per month.
Agreed. China exports around $220 billion/month. The US exports are more but the US has a net trade deficit.
Exports are the price we pay for imports. So the English definition of “trade deficit” is “net profit.”
= China is contributing to our standard of living until it’s not.
Correct. Cheap labor = Cheaper prices for products sold in the U.S. The jeans maker, Levis, was one of the last major brands to manufacture it products in the U.S. It could not compete price wise with the products manufactured in China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Singapore. About the same time frame that Nixon negotiated with Mao, he also signed the HMO Act of 1973 that created the current medical treatment structure that we all love. Send manufacturing jobs overseas, hamstring doctors.
How much of that is “killing machine” material?
Mostly oil and gas.
I suppose exporting weapons do have some value.
We have lost any sense of our own democratic values… These sanctions are brutal and inhumane. “Hey, hey USA, how many kids have you killed today? How many innocent people?”…. Karma is going to be hell.
Donna, this is why I often ask, when the SHTF, where will our politicians,,DC GHOULS and LOCAL GHOULS, run and hide too??? Will they walk among their constituents, go to their office, come to the local coffee shop…………..just curious. 🙂
aside from the obvious attention-whores, how many of them could you actually pick out of a line-up ?
Ask Clinton. Very successful with sanctions on Iraq. Excellent. Almost as good at killing as Obama was with his Tuesday morning list and increased drone murders.
talking of threatening behaviour, a fresh terror attack in occupied Palestine
>A group of Israeli settlers assaulted and wounded two Palestinians on Monday in the latest attack against farmers, amid a rise in settler violence in the occupied West Bank.
Khaled Salah, 50, and Mahmoud Faroniya, 51, were trying to access their land in Burqa
village near Nablus, north of the West Bank, when around eight settlers
approached them in a car, and then proceeded to get out of the vehicle
and attack them.
I expect Israeli police and army are already on a manhunt for the terrorists
But of course……………………..
Dump these treasonous Israel -Firsters…
U mean the “Israel Fisters”? 🙂
SO,,other than the USA and Britain over throwing the elected President of Iran in 1953 and installing the corrupt and evil Shah,,what has Iran really done to threaten the USA????? Purge the DC GHOULS,,save our Republic and Constitution!
“This bill takes the long overdue step of striking the arbitrary sunset from the law, so that sanctions will only be lifted if Iran stops its threatening behavior. Iran can’t run out the clock on US law,” McCaul said.
Indeed. The weekly bombing of Syria has got to stop. Along with assassinating scientists and sabotaging nuclear facilities. Oh wait, that’s the terrorists we send $4 billion annually and veto any resolution at the UN that condemns their brutality.
I propose that everyone in Congress be required to take a test that demonstrates a high level understanding of the Constitution. Test scores should be a matter of public record.
Obviously, McCaul would fail the part that tests his understanding of Article 1, Section 8.
(Legislature to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes)
What exactly is the point of making it permanent. What incentive does Iran have after that to change its behavior? We seem inordinately angry at Iran in a way that we aren’t with say Vietnam.
Iran reapproachment with SA is significant. Also significant is SA saying Syria should secure all of its country, get those who are not invited out, such as the U.S.
Sure is, wasn’t SA funding some of the discord in Syria initially along with the USA. Assad isn’t a nice fella but I can’t imagine whoever climbs to the top of the rubble pile should he be removed will be any better. In the meantime it is a sovereign state with defined borders. We should respect that. The Russian actions in Syria are more defensible than ours, they were invited in by the government we invaded
What makes you think that the point of sanctions is to “change” Iranian “behavior.”
The purpose of the sanctions is to keep oil prices high enough for US shale extraction to be profitable. Keeping Iranian oil off a certain portion of world markets assists in that goal.
Iran is already US sanction proof…! So This bill is just an ego trip to show US public congress is doing something…!
Here is another example of a legislator who wants to give the President unchecked authority to regulate trade. The proposal, in my opinion, is unconstitutional because the legislature is unconditionally responsible for regulating foreign trade.
Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Make Sanctions on U.S. Permanent
Gotta make the Zionists happy to keep those lobby funds coming into Wash.
This is going to backfire on the US in a very bad way… When ordinary people are suffering, it would seem that our ability to discern the effectiveness of our own tactics comes seriously into question…