The prospect of controversial Republican nominee Donald Trump becoming the 45th President of the United States was a running joke throughout Seatrade Maritime Middle East (SMME) in Dubai this week with a potential punchline that many attendees don’t believe will be funny for global shipping, let alone Iran.
With Hillary Clinton’s lead in the polls evaporating following the reopening of the “Emailgate” saga the Democratic Party nominee is unable to shake, the prospect of Trump winning was inevitably raised during SMME’s official ‘Iran Investment Forum’.
Panellist Patrick Murphy from Clyde & Co got the ball rolling when he was asked whether the Iranian President Elections on 19 May next year would further delay a final decision on the Iran Petroleum Contracts (IPC) and with it huge oil and gas opportunities.
“There’s two election risks potentially coming up to be honest,” said Murphy, dispute resolution group at international law firm Clyde & Co, pointing to the US Presidential Election on Tuesday.
“There is potential for wheels to be spun until we get over those two initial road bumps and people then have visibility about what the next 18 months, two years or more might look like in terms of the political climate because you’ve got potential forks in the road galore over the next few months…who knows where that will take us.”
Murphy said while he believed it would be difficult for the US to unilaterally back out of the Iran nuclear deal “despite what’s been said [by Trump]”, he said it was legally feasible with “one very practical way a President Trump could derail it if he wanted to”. Trump‘s foreign policy campaigning, while seemingly flimsy on concrete proposals, has produced plenty of rhetoric on Iran following the lifting of sanctions in January.
“The way the US relief on implementation day was implemented was by a Presidential waiver of the Congressional sanctions which is valid for only one year and it has to be renewed year upon year upon year. So at some point a new President is going to have to renew that waiver and if they don’t want to, they simply don’t sign it and the sanctions will come back in automatically.”
The waiver has to be reviewed again 16 January next year, just three days before inauguration of either Trump or Clinton as US President.
“So we’ll get at least one more [year] from President Obama you’ve got to assume but there will be a point where the new President has to sign and depending what happens, he [Trump] could, in theory, decide not to.”
Atousa Mahmoudpou, head of the Iran desk at Dubai-based Fitchte Legal Consultants, doubted Trump would back out of the nuclear deal. “There is speculation that if Trump wins, him being a businessman, he wouldn’t want an attack on the Iranian market so who knows right…so we just have to wait and see.”
Likewise fellow panellist Bill Farren-Price, ceo at Petroleum Policy Intelligence, said Iran faced bigger geopolitical issues before trade opportunities would be ignited, even beyond a final IPC settlement.
“Even if he [Trump] was voted in, it’s very difficult to see to what extent he could override what has been negotiated internationally,” Farren-Price said.
“Iran’s regional involvement, the need to make progress on Syria and other countries in the region where Iran is somehow involved, I think this is going to be one of the challenges and it’s not going to be overcome post sanctions on its own.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Seatrade, a trading name of Informa Markets (UK) Limited. Add Seatrade Maritime News to your Google News feed.
