WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senator Foreign Relations Committee and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, today released the following statement after being informed by the State Department that it would waive sanctions on the Iranian Regime’s oil trade so that the country can access frozen funds from South Korea and Japan, the same day the Department of Justice announced charges on an Iranian Regime spy network that sought to kidnap an American:
“President Biden today is giving the Iranian regime—the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism—an economic bailout by freeing up billions of dollars that U.S. sanctions had frozen in foreign banks. I personally spent months working with the then-Japanese Prime Minster and his cabinet to put in place these crippling and biting sanctions, which had real and tangible results, only today to see them begin to be blown apart with the stroke of a pen in exchange for nothing. President Biden is doubling down on his Iran appeasement policy just as it was revealed that Iranian officials were plotting to abduct an American citizen in New York City, and as the regime is continuing to use missiles and proxy militants to attack Americans in Iraq and Syria. The Administration must immediately rescind all waivers of sanctions against Iran, and stand up for U.S. interests. President Biden must also immediately end the Vienna negotiations, which are designed to bribe the regime with massive sanctions relief and to revive the fatally flawed Iran nuclear deal.”