While the federal government could lift sanctions on Iran if a nuclear accord is struck by the June 30 deadline, nearly two dozen states have indicated that they will maintain their own sanctions on the Iranian regime.
Many of the states currently punish companies linked to Iran and direct public pension funds with billions of dollars in assets to divest from the firms, sometimes even barring the firms from public contracts, according to Reuters.
Two states - Kansas and Mississippi - are considering imposing additional sanctions. More than half the states will only remove the sanctions if Iran is no longer designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, or if all federal sanctions are lifted, both of which are unlikely to happen. State sanctions are often stricter than federal sanctions and can be more difficult to remove.
The possibility that individual states will refuse to lift their sanctions even if a federal agreement is reached with Iran certainly complicates things a bit. Legislators in Georgia, Florida and Michigan told Reuters that they don't plan to change their Iran policies even if a federal agreement is reached. In Connecticut and Illinois, new legislation would first be needed to change their policies, lawmakers said.
New York and Oregon lawmakers told Reuters that they would base their policies could change depending on what happens at the federal level.
But Iran insists that all sanctions must first be lifted before an agreement is signed. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday, "We will not sign any deal unless on the very first day of its implementation all economic sanctions against Iran are lifted all at once," reported CNN. It's unclear if Rouhani was referring to state level sanctions as well.
Though it's unlikely that all federal sanctions would be lifted either, noted Reuters.
In exchange for Iran agreeing not to develop nuclear weapons, negotiators are expected to offer to remove U.S. sanctions on Iran's crude oil sales to other countries, as well as sanctions on Tehran's financial system. But sanctions relating to human rights and terrorism issues would remain in place, according to Reuters.
