Trump Has No Standing to Snap Back Iran Sanctions

The United States has no standing at the United Nations on the 2015 nuclear deal and cannot snap back multilateral sanctions on Tehran, Wendy Sherman, the chief US negotiator in talks that led to the landmark agreement, said.
In an interview with the American radio news magazine “the World”, she said the negotiators back in 2015 wanted to make sure any country that was a participant could go to the UN and return the sanctions if Iran was in deep violation of the agreement. 
“The [US President Donald] Trump administration left the deal in 2018, loudly saying by the president of the United States, that we were no longer a participant in the deal,” she said, according to Business Insider. 
Sherman highlighted the consensus among all other members of the deal over the matter.
“And so, you heard Germany, Great Britain and France—all members of the agreement—say that the United States was no longer a participant because it had left the deal.”
After its withdrawal from the agreement, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Washington restored its own sweeping sanctions under a so-called maximum pressure campaign to force Iranian leaders to renegotiate a new deal. 
Iran took remedial measures foreseen in the accord and scaled back its commitments when its JCPOA benefits remained unprotected for a year.
The US on Thursday submitted a letter to the 15-member UN Security Council accusing Tehran of non-compliance and initiating the snapback process.
“Some countries haven't fully complied with the US unilateral sanctions … And what they are seeking at the United Nations is to have the multilateral UN sanctions reimposed on Iran, even with the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign,” Sherman said. 
Washington argues that it remains a participant under a UNSC resolution that endorsed the JCPOA.
An overwhelming majority of council members have expressed their opposition, arguing that Washington’s move is void as it has quit the deal. 
Sherman said the US measures have put the JCPOA in a concerning situation, by claiming that Iran’s steps away from the agreement have brought it closer to building a nuclear weapon. 
Iran denies ever seeking to build weapons of mass destruction, maintaining that its nuclear activities serve exclusively peaceful purposes.