Bob Menendez

Let me read from the Export Administration Act of 1979, which establishes part of the legal foundation for designating a country as a sponsor of terrorism.

Is it not true that the Castro regime provides sanctuary to Joanne Chesimard who is on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists for murdering a New Jersey State trooper?

I do not want to relive 50 years of engagement with China that has brought us forced abortions, prison camp labor, one-child policy, ethnic cleansing in Tibet, exile of the Dalai Lama, and most recently repression in Hong Kong's democracy…

The best way to promote American values and ideals and to empower Cuban citizens... is through a policy of engagement, not isolation.

I am concerned that the President announced that the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations would be granted access in Cuba. Yet, we know from the State Department briefings that they will be allowed to travel to…

This policy has failed to achieve any of these goals.

Even the President conceded in the 2014 State of the Union that sanctions laws passed by the U.S. Congress with bipartisan veto-proof majorities forced Iran back to the negotiating table.

I know that we have heard many times before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when I was a member and when I chaired it, and even most recently, that, in fact, the world will come to an end, do not have sanctions, you are just going…

Iran can cheat, but we do not worry about that in the context of unsettling the Joint Plan of Action because technically it is not within it.

However, it is not just any agreement. It has to be an agreement that significantly moves Iran in a different direction.

I believe the only way Iran will voluntarily stop their march to nuclear weapons is if they know tougher and tougher sanctions will be enacted.

But such a peaceful resolution to Iran's nuclear program will not be possible if we do not allow the negotiations to proceed to conclusion.

I have long supported sanctions on Iran, and the benefit of hindsight has only reaffirmed my commitment to these sanctions.

We share a belief that not only is the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran too great to tolerate, but that Iran's nuclear program could set off an arms race in the Middle East.

The more concerned I am that we feed into the narrative there that Iran is the victim when Iran has original sin here by having an illicit nuclear program.

Our international partners believe that the United States, if it is perceived as acting prematurely through additional nuclear-related sanctions legislation in the absence of a provocation or a violation by Iran, their willingness to…

New sanctions at this time are unnecessary and, far from enhancing the prospects for negotiations, risk fatally undermining our diplomacy

The worst possible outcome the world, the United States, and Israel face is a nuclear Iran.

Moving forward with new, unilateral U.S. sanctions at this time risks undermining the negotiations and could jeopardize chances to secure additional gains through a comprehensive agreement.

The time has come for Iran to stop playing games.

The necessity of ending Iran's nuclear weapons program is at the top of that list.

I think American security depends significantly on ending uranium enrichment capability.

So we get an alarm bell, but we do not dismantle Iran's illicit nuclear infrastructure.

We sometimes have a tendency to see Iran as a monolith, a country devoid of politics. In fact, the politics are intense.

It is sanctions, tough sanctions, not the goodness of the hearts of the Iranian leaders, that brought Iran to the negotiating table.