President Donald Trump may have stepped down, but the combative foreign policy that has made him a despised figure among America’s enemies seems destined to stay with the president and former senior government officials.
This week, China and Iran imposed sanctions on Trump, and on Thursday, the media aligned with the Iranian state even suggested that the country still intends to take personal revenge on the former president for his “maximum pressure” stance on Tehran.
The tweet was later shared by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with his own threat.
American rivals – China and Iran in particular – have commonly issued strong denunciations of Trump and other top administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for the past four years.
This, Trump’s allies said, was proof that the government’s strategies to contain and undermine dictatorial regimes were working.
Both Beijing and Tehran hope that the election of President Joe Biden will mark a more cooperative American strategy, but in the meantime, they seem determined to continue their public criticisms of Trump and his departure from the government.
On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters that a number of American officials would be sanctioned for their roles in the assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani, allegedly involved in the death of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and his general support for acts of terror “and economic sanctions against Iran.
Targets include Trump, Pompeo, former acting defense secretary Christopher Miller, former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, former CIA director Gina Haspel and former Iranian special representative Elliot Abrams.
Officers who had already left the list included former National Security adviser John Bolton, former Iranian envoy Brian Hook and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
The sanctions – like several Iranian legal challenges against the Trump administration in recent years – are symbolic and will have no impact on appointed officials, given the absence of any commercial interest in the country.
China took similar measures on the day of Biden’s inauguration, ending four years of irritating Beijing-Washington, DC relations complicated by trade conflicts, territorial disputes, human rights issues and the coronavirus pandemic.
China’s Foreign Ministry announced sanctions while Biden was being installed. Pompeo and 27 other top officials said – including former head of commerce, Peter Navarro; former national security advisers Robert O’Brien and John Bolton; Health Secretary Alex Azar; United Nations Ambassador, Kelly Craft; and former strategist Trump Steve Bannon – would not be allowed to do business or travel to China, Hong Kong or Macau.
Pompeo and the others, the ministry claimed, “planned, promoted and executed a series of crazy movements, seriously interfered in China’s internal affairs, undermined China’s interests, offended the Chinese people and seriously disrupted China-US relations”.
Iranian leader Khamenei pushed the issue further on Thursday, retweeting an image shared by the Tasnim News Agency showing Trump playing golf under the shadow of a military aircraft. The caption warned: “Revenge is inevitable.”
Khamenei shared the image, writing: “Vengeance must be exercised on those who ordered the assassination of General Soleimani, as well as those who carried him.”
Senior Iranian officials have repeatedly threatened more retaliation for the American assassination of Soleimani, conducted through a drone attack in Baghdad in January 2020.
Soleimani was the commander of the secret Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and responsible for foreign Iranian military activity. This included building and coordinating Tehran’s powerful regional network of representative militias. Soleimani was a confidant of Khamenei and widely regarded as one of the regime’s most powerful men.
The legacy of Soleimani’s assassination could still undermine Biden’s efforts to unfreeze ties with Tehran and revive the nuclear deal of the Joint Global Action Plan.
Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was repressed by angry conservative lawmakers who condemned him for signaling to the United States that he was open to new negotiations, just days after the first anniversary of Soleimani’s murder.
ALEX EDELMAN / AFP via Getty Images / Getty