Washington claims that maximum pressure won’t stop the supply of medicine and other humanitarian necessities, but banking sanctions are driving up import prices, blocking supply chains, and creating deadly drug shortages.

The illegal economic sanctions that the Trump administration has imposed on Iran are ruining its economy by increasing the inflation rate—from nine percent before the sanctions to 35-40 percent today—as well as unemployment, and forcing countless numbers of small businesses to close. Whereas Iran’s economy grew by 12.5 percent in 2016, it has shrunk by six percent in the first six months of 2019. These are the results that President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and National Security Advisor John Bolton constantly brag about. But they have created unspeakable suffering for ordinary Iranian people, who don’t even have a say in what their political system does.

Secondary sanctions have become a critical challenge for Europe, due to the Trump administration’s maximalist policy on Iran and its aggressive economic statecraft. Europe’s vulnerabilities mostly result from asymmetric interdependence with the US economy, due to the size of US markets and the global role of the US dollar. In future, states will likely weaponise economic interdependence with the EU to target countries that are more important to the European economy than Iran, such as China and Russia. European countries should demonstrate that, despite their economic interdependence with the US, they control EU foreign policy.The EU should begin to build up its deterrence and resilience against secondary sanctions, and prepare to adopt asymmetric countermeasures against any country that harms European interests through secondary sanctions.They should also attempt to bolster the global role of the euro and lead a robust international dialogue on the role of sanctions.

Global rates of international research collaboration have increased sharply in recent decades.Iran’s international research collaboration rate rose over recent periods of increased sanctions; however, evidence suggests that factors other than economic restrictions may be influencing this. Iran’s publication rates have risen during recent periods of increased sanctions; however, its quantitative and qualitative metrics are discordant. Reasons for Iran’s publication discordance may include increased indexing of Iranian journals in scholarly databases, willingness of lower visibility journals to handle manuscripts with Iranian authors, widespread linkage of career advancement to science visibility indices, and others. The World Medical Association rejects academic sanctions or boycotts and calls on all national medical associations to resist the imposition of such restrictions by every means at their disposal.