The Transatlantic Trade Divide

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, is set to announce his decision on whether to continue the Iran Nuclear Deal on Tuesday. Some observers argue that Trump has so fiercely positioned himself against the deal because it’s part of the legacy of his predecessor Barack Obama – and Trump is bent on erasing Obama’s political legacy, no matter what the context or content.

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (USA, China, Russia, France, Britain) had underwritten the deal in 2015 together with Germany. It lifted economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for the Middle Eastern country vowing to stop the development of nuclear arms. As our infographic with data from the European Comissin shows, the EU has much more to lose from Trump pulling the plug. The United States would not suffer in terms of trade, as data by the U.S. Census Bureau on the U.S.-Iran trade relations suggest.