Decision on nuclear pact to be released Tuesday

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday that he was ready to announce whether he would pull the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, as European officials quietly indicated they had failed to convince the administration that dismantling the accord would be a huge diplomatic error.

Diplomats who were familiar with the negotiations said Trump appeared inclined to scrap the deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran that were suspended in an accord reached in Vienna in July 2015.

But it is unclear whether he would moderate that move, perhaps by allowing the European nations to move ahead with their economic relations with Tehran without being penalized by the United States.

Trump issued two tweets about the coming decision. The first berated John Kerry, the former secretary of state, for his “possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran deal.” It was an apparent reference to Kerry’s calls to leaders around the world looking for ways to save an accord that he dedicated much of his term during the Obama administration to negotiating.

A few hours later, Trump, who has termed the accord a “disaster” and vowed during the 2016 presidential campaign to kill it, said that he would be announcing his decision at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the White House.

Withdrawing the United States from the deal will open the way for Tehran to resume making nuclear fuel. The agreement with world powers required Iran to ship about 97 percent of its nuclear fuel out of the country, and to halt production of new fuel for 15 years.

But Trump has argued that is not long enough, and that the accord failed to embrace Iran’s development of missiles and its support for terrorism around the Middle East.

In recent weeks, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have visited Trump and urged him to keep the deal in place. They argued that if the United States withdraws, Iran could accurately claim that Washington was the first to violate the accord, and would be free to resume fuel production, according to diplomats who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Trump believes that once the current agreement is destroyed, Iran will come to the table to negotiate a new one. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has said Tehran will not do that.

It is unclear how Iran will react, and it is possible that Tehran may choose to stay within the accord, at least initially. That would separate the United States from its European allies, who have made clear they will not follow Washington and reimpose sanctions.