TRUMP TORPEDOES IRAN DEAL
Spurns allies, top aides to scrap Iran nuke pact
NO DEAL.
President Trump, brushing aside the concern of allies and the threat of war, announced Tuesday that the U.S. will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.
The U.S. will reinstate sanctions against the Middle East nation and seek new economic penalties as Trump dismantles his predecessor’s signature foreign policy accomplishment.
“The United States does not make empty threats,” Trump said during a televised address at the White House, denouncing the deal as “defective at its core.”
Trump said the 2015 agreement, which included Germany, France and Britain, was a “horrible one-sided deal that should never ever have been made.”
He added that the United States “will be instituting the highest level of economic sanction.”
Trump has railed against the landmark Obama era pact, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, since his days on the campaign trail, calling the agreement the “worst deal ever.”
“Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States. America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail,” he said.
The possibly destabilizing act comes as Trump is set to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, likely later this month, to negotiate dismantling the rogue nation’s own nuclear weapons program.
The 2015 accord struck by the the Obama administration, Iran and several world powers lifted the majority of sanctions against the country.
In return, Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program making it impossible to produce a bomb, along with rigorous inspections.
The U.S. intelligence community, Trump’s own secretary of state and the UN agency that monitors nuclear compliance all agree that Iran has lived up to its side of the deal, but that didn’t deter Trump.
Former President Barack Obama called the decision a “serious mistake.”
“Walking away from the (agreement) turns our back on America’s closest allies, and an agreement that our country’s leading diplomats, scientists, and intelligence professionals negotiated,” he said in a statement.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (photo below) blasted Trump’s “psychological war” and warned that the country is prepared to ramp up its nuclear program.
“I have ordered Iran’s atomic organization that whenever it is needed, we will start enriching uranium more than before,” he said. European leaders, who spent months attempting to change Trump’s mind on the issue, said they were willing to work with Iran.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made personal visits to the White House last month to urge the President not to pull out.
“Our governments remain committed to ensuring the agreement is upheld, and will work with all the remaining parties to the deal to ensure this remains the
case, including through ensuring the continuing economic benefits to the Iranian people that are linked to the agreement,” the pair, along with British Prime Minister Theresa May, said in a statement.
Foreign policy experts were stunned by the action, noting that it doesn’t match up with Trump’s self-described expertise as a dealmaker.
“This is part of the incoherence of the Trump administration,” said Jarrett Blanc, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the former State Department coordinator for Iran nuclear implementation. “There isn’t really a coherent policy that underlies a dramatic increase in tensions with Iran.”
Making matters worse, Trump “clearly doesn’t understand the terms of the deal,” Blanc said.
The White House said that the Trump administration will reimpose nuclear sanctions on Iran immediately but allow grace periods for businesses so they don’t violate the sanctions.
That includes secondary sanctions, which punish even non-Americans if they do business with Iran.
Highlighting the extent of the sanctions, Trump’s new ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, warned “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a longtime opponent of the deal — applauded Trump’s “bold decision” to “reject the disastrous nuclear deal with the terrorist regime in Tehran.”