Trump Moves Up Decision On Iran Nuclear Deal To Tuesday, May 8
President Trump announced on Monday afternoon that he will not be waiting until the May 12 deadline to announce his decision on the Iran nuclear deal. He indicated that he knows how he wants to proceed and will make his choice known to the public on Tuesday, May 8 at 2 p.m. from the White House.
Trump said nothing that hinted at whether the U.S. will pull out of the deal by reimposing sanctions that had been lifted as part of the 2015 agreemen,t or whether we will stay in the agreement, with or without negotiations on its conditions.
President Trump’s decision about the Iran nuclear deal is arguably his biggest foreign policy decision to date as president. He has been critical of the agreement since he was campaigning for president, going so far as to call it “the worst deal ever,” according to The Hill. During his campaign, Trump committed to getting the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, and comments by world leaders who have met with him in attempts to convince him to stay in the deal suggest that he has not been swayed from that position.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry spent much of his time in that position negotiating the terms of the Iran nuclear deal. President Trump took to Twitter this morning to attack Kerry’s work on the pact and his outreach to world leaders in an effort to save the accord.
President Trump announced he would make his decision on the U.S.' stance on the Iran nuclear deal Tuesday, days before the May 12 deadline. https://t.co/HvywDkH36n pic.twitter.com/OjjBb7nrIT
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 7, 2018
In recent weeks, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Markel have visited Trump to try to persuade him to keep the agreement intact. Macron indicated on Sunday that he would like to maintain the pact while conducting conversations about Iran’s ballistic missiles and activities in the Middle East, two points that Trump sees as weaknesses of the current agreement.
Bloomberg reports that U.K. Foreign Minister Boris Johnson is in D.C. this week for the same purpose. He had voiced an opinion that he agrees with President Trump that the deal made with Iran is flawed, but that improving it should be the goal, not pulling out of it. Trump believes that if the U.S. pulls out of the agreement, Iran will renegotiate its terms. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif participated in negotiations of the nuclear deal and has indicated that they will not return to the table if the U.S. pulls out.
