US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has issued a long list of demands for any new nuclear deal with Iran and threatened unprecedented sanctions if Tehran does not bow to planned restrictions.

US sanctions are already prompting international companies to turn their back on Iran’s vital oil sector. France’s Total is threatening to pull out of a multi-billion-dollar project to develop Iran’s giant South Pars gas field unless the US grants it a waiver.

Shipping group AP Moller-Maersk also last week joined a growing list of companies preparing to call a halt to doing business with Iran, casting doubts on whether European leaders can keep alive a nuclear deal with Tehran.

The 12-point list of demands by Pompeo came in a speech this week that laid out the Trump administration’s strategy after pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement earlier this month.

Pompeo insisted Iran must indefinitely abandon nuclear weapons work and provide United Nations inspectors access to sites anywhere in the country under a new deal. Tehran must also end work on ballistic missiles and stop its “destabilising activities” across the Middle East.

If Iran does not change course, the US “will apply unprecedented financial pressure”, Pompeo warned.

“These will be the strongest sanctions in history by the time we are done,” said Pompeo. “The [Iranian] regime has been fighting all over the Middle East for years. After our sanctions come into full force, it will be battling to keep its economy alive.”

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani dismissed the threats. “The world today does not accept that the US decides for the world. Countries have their independence,” he said.

President Donald Trump has vowed to reimpose sanctions that were lifted as part of the 2015 nuclear agreement, which was signed between Iran, the US, and several European countries, as well as Russia and China. European countries are holding talks with Iran to try to salvage the deal. However, it is not clear whether the effort can succeed. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the European Union’s “political will is not enough to preserve the deal.”

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini reacted to Pompeo’s speech by saying there is “no alternative” to the existing agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and that European nations are already using sanctions to pressure Iran to change its behaviour.

“Secretary Pompeo’s speech has not demonstrated how walking away from the JCPOA has made or will make the region safer from the threat of nuclear proliferation or how it puts us in a better position to influence Iran’s conduct in areas outside the scope of the JCPOA,” she said.

Though a number of European businesses have said they will comply with the US demands and stop doing business with Iran, some European leaders have threatened countermeasures to offset the effects of American sanctions. That would make it more difficult for the US to apply tough economic pressure on Iran.

In his speech, Pompeo acknowledged that many US allies will suffer “financial and economic difficulties” because of the reimposed sanctions.

“We want to hear your concerns,” Pompeo said. “But you should know that we will hold those doing prohibited business in Iran to account.”

For now, the EU is trying to persuade Iran to stay in the 2015 agreement, even without Washington’s participation. Russia and China have also criticised the US move and vowed to maintain trade with Iran.

UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the sort of “jumbo Iran deal” Pompeo envisioned would not be “very easy to achieve in anything like a reasonable timescale”.

And the EU’s foreign policy chief said there was “no alternative” to the Iran nuclear deal.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, attending a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Buenos Aires, said he was not surprised by Pompeo’s critique of the Iran deal, before adding: “We do not see at this time a better alternative.

“We believe that without this agreement, we would take the risk that Iran resumes its nuclear programme,” he said.

Weekly

US issues list of demands in Iran stand-off