Global business News twenty four hours a day. If Bloomberg dot Com, the radio plus Global lapp and on your radio. This is a Bloomberg Business Flash from Bloomberg World Headquarters. I'm Katherine Cowdery, the smp f I funded as he raised earlier losses. Resource producers are rallying, along with prices for medals ranging from gold to copper. The Benchmark index has fallen one point two percent this week. It's set for its first back to back weekly retreat in three months.
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Box on Bloomberg Radio. The Central banks of India and Iran they have reached an agreement to use European banks in order the process pending oil payments to Tehran, unlocking about six and a half billion dollars installed funds. Our next guest has a thing or two about Iran. His name is Senator Joseph Lieberman. Senator Lieberman is a former U S Senator from Connecticut. He was also the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in the two thousand election.
He also served as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee from two thousand and seven until twenty thirteen. And he is the chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran. And he joins us now. Senator Lieberman, thank you very much for being with us. Glad to be with you, Pim, thank you. Tell US about United Against Nuclear Iran. What is this organization? Right? United Against Nuclear Iran is not
the new organization. It was formed seven or eight years ago by an impressive group of diplomats including the late Richard Holbrook, Investador Holbrook, Dennis Ross, Jim Wolsey was director of the CIA under President Clinton, and Mark Wallace, who was in the U n A delegation under President Bush. And at that point, the purpose and still is was to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. And now we're focused post around nuclear agreement on really sank to
the business community. That agreement doesn't mean that it's it's risk less to start doing business with Iran or it's open season to do business with Iran. It's loaded with risk, first because there are still sanctions against Irun for terrorism, for violation of human rights where it's Islamic guard cores,
and the the second is there's reputational risk. This is still the largest state sponsor, a most significant state sponsor of terrorism now expanding throughout the region, and a tremendous suppressor of women's rights, gay rights, political freedom, journalist freedom, etcetera. So we're basically focused on businesses in America. And throughout the world and saying, uh, don't do business with Iran yet, it's too early and it's too risky for you and
your stockholders. Having said that, the Senator, I'm wondering if you could just offer a little detail about why is it that you're targeting companies And don't you believe that the companies themselves have the wherewithal to do the research necessary for whether they want to do business with Iran. Yeah, that's a great question. So uh in some cases maybe not. Um. Uh, you know, there's been a general reaction in some places. Uh there on nuclear agreement has been signed. Its open season.
Time to go rushing back into Iran to do business. But the the Iran Nuclear Agreement, if I can put it this way, it was transactional. It was limited to the nuclear weapons program. It was not transformational about Iran. Ramant Iran remains terrorist state, remains from a terrible suppressor of human rights, and remains of a verbal open declared
enemy of the United States of America. Also, those sanctions are on and uh, if you do business with an organism, a company in Iran, you may well be doing business with the I r g C. The The Star a military group that has great economic power, and if you are, you're subject to sanctions, to losing access to the US banking system, and we're just asking businesses to ask themselves
whether it's worth it. Frankly, we're also saying to them that there are people out here like us who are still who still feel Iran is of the number one threat to not only American security, but but regional and world security. And if you're going to do business with them, you're going to be supporting this extremist regime. UH, and that's ultimately going to create a backlash perhaps among our
company's customers. UM, So you're trying to make a political point or you're trying to make a business point what
we're doing both. I mean, we're saying, on the on the continuing existence of the sanctions, that you better look twice at the law before you think that it's it's without risk of legal consequence or without risk of compromising your access to the American banking system and markets for you to do business and uh Iran, we're also saying there's reputational risk that ultimately Iran has given no indication of moderating its behavior since Iran nuclear agreement and effect.
Just last weekend, again the Supreme Leader I have told a common I declared that the United States is the number one enemy of Iran and a kind of irreconcilable UH enemies. So I guess what I'm trying to understand, center is why do they need Why do US companies need an organization like United Against Nuclear Iran to tell them exactly what you just said. I mean, I would assume that they would need the headlines and they would
do their own due diligence. Well maybe not. Maybe they think they can get away with it, but I'll tell you, or are not run to follow the other sanctions, I'll
say you something. What we're trying to do is to shine a light, and frankly, we're also saying implicitly, if not explicitly, to companies if you're We do this with letters to the companies, with appearances at UH different business meetings that are dealing with bringing people to Iran to do business, where we were represented by the former Italian foreign minister Julio Tears at a meeting in Zurich just this past week of the European Iran Form and part of it is just to say that the lights are
still on Iran, and if you do business there, the lights maybe on you. That'll be bad for your reputation, and at some point may actually close economic consequences for you from your consumers who would not customers who would not want to feel that they were buying from a company that was economically supporting a terrorist anti America and regime. Just looking at the list of signatories to your letter, destriving these possibilities just because how come there are no
business executives, Well, it's a good question. Maybe the next ste are we will, I mean, since it's founding and you could hear this from the names I mentioned, Holbrook, Wolsey, Ross, Wallace, etcetera. And these were former, uh, public servants, former diplomats, etcetera. People really familiar with the state of negotiations with Iran and with the with the sanctions law, and and UH we've had some business people expressed support for what we're doing,
and I hope we have more. I mean, we we haven't hesitated to go really directly to some great companies like ge or Siemens, Fiat Christs or Bombadeer Maraths are companies that have indicated that they may be thinking about doing business with Iran, and honestly, we want them to know the risks. Uh. This is a still a country that has declared under the Patriot Act to be a a money laundering operation and subject to legal penalties for for doing business with it. Let's talk about some other names.
I'm going to give you two and a half a minute or so to comment on each. Donald Trump, Oh, Donald Trump, big surprise of the year. I didn't see it coming obviously in a primary though, though it's only a minority of voters. Of what primaries are both parties, probably about ten overall of the voters in the in the country. Um, they're saying something which is there the voters are by supporting Trump, They're they're furious at the
status quo and they want something different. And I guess i'd say, uh, none of us should underestimate him because he's come a lot further than any of us study ever would Hillary Clinton, she's very experienced and or for a long time. Uh, and Uh, I guess you'd have to say she's the favorite going into the fall election. But if if there was a supporting word, I'm not supporting either. I've been involved in another organization called No Labels,
which is in China, believe or not. Idealistically, so I would say naively trying to create incentives for bipartisan cooperation in Washington. So I'm gonna wait a while, probably through the national conventions. I mean, the big challenge to Hillary Clinton is that that she has exactly the experience, the qualiser to be president, which is to say, she may be seen as an insider in a year when the public clearly wants change, and Trump is certainly, among other things,
an outsider. So thank you very much. As Senator Joe Lieberman, he is the chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran, the former senator from Connecticut. You're listening to taking Stock on Bloomberg Radio.