United States

The Iran nuclear deal, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, and the Ukraine crisis

The world’s focus shifted in November 2013 to Geneva, where the United States, the other permanent members of the UN Security Council (Britain, France, China, and Russia), and Germany (collectively referred to as the P5+1) entered into an interim agreement with Iran that placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities for six months in exchange for a temporary reduction in the sanctions that had been imposed upon Iran by the international community. Meanwhile, negotiators worked toward a comprehensive final agreement.

Before the end of 2013, the House (by a vote of 332–94) and the Senate (64–36) passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, based on a compromise forged by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, the chairpersons of the House and Senate Budget Committees, respectively. The act replaced the bulk of the automatic spending cuts required by sequestration with targeted cuts, and it raised discretionary spending (split equally between military and nonmilitary funding). The resulting budget was intended to last through fiscal year 2014 and forestall another battle in January 2014, when the temporary budget agreement forged in October was due to expire (provided that the details of the budget could be worked out before then). A number of conservative congressional Republicans opposed the spending increases and called for the sequester-level cuts to remain in place, while many Democrats were disappointed because the act did not extend long-term unemployment benefits.

Among the foreign policy challenges faced by the United States in 2014 was how to respond to the upheaval in Ukraine that eventually resulted in the self-declared independence of the autonomous republic of Crimea, which was then annexed by Russia. The United States was one of many countries that condemned the involvement of Russia and Russian troops in the events in Crimea, and the United States also imposed sanctions on prominent individual Russians while joining the other members of the Group of Eight in suspending Russia from that organization.