The world is increasingly looking for ways to circumvent U.S. economic sanctions and the Trump White House’s “go-it-alone” foreign policy is spurring this process, said former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on Tuesday.
The lack of support among U.S. allies for the U.S. decision to reintroduce sanctions on Iran has launched “a process to look for ways around U.S. sanctions with more creativity and more energy than we’ve seen before,” Lew said during a conversation at the Atlantic Council.
“The plumbing is being built and tested to work around the United States,” he said.
While not an immediate issue, over time there will be alternatives developed that will chip away at the “centrality” of the U.S., Lew said.
“I think the way the U.S. is approaching the use of its unilateral authorities now is causing that process to hasten,” he said.
He said he hoped the Trump White House would reverse course before the alternatives become a reality.
“There is some period of time that the world will wait before it says ‘we’re going to start to develop these things in the most aggressive way,’” he said.
Lew also said he didn’t think President Donald Trump’s approach on North Korea would succeed.
“The odds of North Korea actually putting its nuclear program on hold is a long shot,” Lew said.
Economic sanctions in place have been undermined by the president’s “grandiose embrace” of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, he said.
Trump said he will hold a two-day summit with the North Korean leader on Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam.
Read: Trump, Kim to hold second summit
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