Senior House Republican urges leaders to prioritize maximum-pressure sanctions on Iran
Rep. Joe Wilson’s letter encourages quick passage of legislation that would also block a new Iran deal

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Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) looks on during a hearing to examine war crimes from Syria to Ukraine at the U.S. Capitol on July 10, 2024 in Washington, DC.
A senior House Republican national security voice is urging House and Senate leaders to prioritize passing legislation codifying maximum-pressure sanctions against the Iranian regime — rather than relying on executive orders alone — and heading off any attempt at a new nuclear deal with the regime.
The Trump administration implemented the maximum-pressure program during its first term. Though the Biden administration never formally repealed any of the sanctions, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle accused the Biden administration of failing to fully enforce them. House Republicans, particularly the members of the influential Republican Study Committee, repeatedly pushed legislation during President Joe Biden’s term to codify the sanctions, to ensure that neither Biden nor any future president could unilaterally lift them.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who previously led the Middle East subcommittee and leads the RSC’s national security task force, wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and the chairs of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees urging them to prioritize passing legislation to codify the sanctions.
He emphasized that such legislation should be an early agenda item for the House alongside the reconciliation package (or packages) that congressional Republicans have made their top priority, with policies such as increased border security funding and tax cuts.
“We should not pass up the opportunity to move legislation securing our country from the threat of the Iranian regime,” Wilson said in his letter last week, obtained by Jewish Insider. “Since President Trump’s successful Maximum Pressure campaign on Iran was enacted largely through Executive Order rather than statute, the sanctions remained at risk throughout the Biden presidency which refused to enforce most of them and considered using waivers and other loopholes to provide sanctions relief to the terrorist regime in Iran.”
Wilson’s letter suggests a level of concern among some national security-minded Republicans that Congress could defer to the Trump administration on national security issues such as Iran sanctions as lawmakers focus on the reconciliation package.
The legislation Wilson is calling on the House to pass would also likely head off any attempt by the Trump administration, or future administrations, to provide sanctions relief to Iran as part of a renewed nuclear deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio floated the possibility of a new agreement with Tehran at his confirmation hearing last week.
While he didn’t suggest the Trump administration might pursue a deal, Wilson emphasized that “as long as Iran sanctions are not codified into law, while curbing and clarifying waiver and license authorities, future administrations could carry out the dream of [former Iran envoy] Rob Malley and other failed Obama-Biden officials, in lifting all sanctions on Iran and filling the regime’s coffers with cash to support terrorism around the world.”
Wilson urged quick action from congressional Republicans, calling on them to “move rapidly and quickly,” “sooner rather than later.”
“Countering Iran must be a Republican legislative priority,” Wilson concluded.