Trump withdraws U.S. from Iran nuclear deal
Return of harsh sanctions divides America from European allies
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the landmark nuclear accord with Iran on Tuesday, abruptly restoring harsh sanctions in the most consequential foreign policy action of his presidency. He declared he was making the world safer, but he also deepened his isolation on the world stage.
Soon after the decision, key U.S. allies and others voiced concern about the fallout but vowed to salvage the deal.
The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement, which was the signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration and included Germany, France and Britain, had lifted most U.S. and international economic sanctions against Iran. In exchange, Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program, making it impossible to produce a bomb and establishing rigorous inspections.
But Mr. Trump, a severe critic of the deal dating back to his presidential campaign, said in a televised address from the White House that it was “defective at its core” and rooted in “fiction.”
U.S. allies in Europe lamented his move to abandon it. Iran’s leader warned his country might “start enriching uranium more than before,” even as he ordered his diplomats to negotiate with their European, Russian and Chinese counterparts.
The sanctions seek to punish Iran for its nuclear program by limiting its ability to sell oil or do business overseas.
Major companies in the U.S. and Europe could be hurt, too. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that licenses held by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus to sell commercial jetliners to Iran will be revoked.
He said the sanctions will sharply curtail sales of oil by Iran, currently the world’s fifth largest oil producer. Mr. Mnuchin said he didn’t expect oil prices to rise sharply, forecasting that other producers will step up production.
Iran’s government must now decide whether to follow the U.S. and withdraw or try to salvage what’s left with the Europeans. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said he was sending his foreign minister to the remaining countries but warned there was only a short time to negotiate with them.
Laying out his case, Mr. Trump contended, “If we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen. In just a short period of time, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.”
The administration said it would reimpose sanctions on Iran immediately but allow grace periods for businesses to wind down activity. Companies and banks doing business with Iran will have to scramble to extricate themselves.
Meanwhile, for nations contemplating striking their own sensitive deals with Mr. Trump, such as North Korea, the withdrawal will increase suspicions that they cannot expect lasting U.S. fidelity to international agreements it signs.
But for Mr. Trump and two of the allies he values most — Israel and Saudi Arabia — the problem of the Iranian nuclear accord was not, primarily, about nuclear weapons. It was that the deal legitimized and normalized Iran’s clerical government, reopening it to the world economy with oil revenue that financed its adventures in Syria and Iraq, its missile program and its support of terrorist groups.
Former President Barack Obama, whose administration negotiated the deal, called Mr. Trump’s action “misguided” and said, “The consistent flouting of agreements that our country is a party to risks eroding America’s credibility and puts us at odds with the world’s major powers.”
Yet nations like Israel and Saudi Arabia that loathed the deal saw the action as a sign the United States is returning to a more skeptical, less trusting approach to dealing with adversaries.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Mr. Trump’s announcement as a “historic move.”
Mr. Trump said Tuesday that documents recently released by Mr. Netanyahu showed Iran had attempted to develop a nuclear bomb in the previous decade, especially before 2003. Although Mr. Trump gave no explicit evidence that Iran violated the deal, he said Iran had clearly lied in the past and could not be trusted.
Iran has denied ever pursuing nuclear arms.
Congressional Democrats, including several who initially opposed the Iran nuclear deal, lashed out at Mr. Trump’s controversial decision, while praise came from many — but not all — in the GOP.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said the Iran deal “was flawed from the beginning,” and he looked forward to working with Mr. Trump on next steps. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, slammed Mr. Trump in a statement, saying this “rash decision isolates America, not Iran.”
In a burst of last-minute diplomacy, punctuated by a visit by Britain’s top diplomat, the deal’s European members had given ground on many of Mr. Trump’s demands for reworking the accord, according to officials, diplomats and others briefed on the negotiations. Yet the Europeans realized he was unpersuaded.
Mr. Trump spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese leader Xi Jinping about his decision Tuesday. Hours before the announcement, European countries met in Brussels with Iran’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs, Abbas Araghchi.
“We urge the U.S. to ensure that the structures of the JCPOA can remain intact, and to avoid taking action which obstructs its full implementation by all other parties to the deal,” Mr. Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May said in a joint statement. “After engaging with the U.S. Administration in a thorough manner over the past months, we call on the U.S. to do everything possible to preserve the gains for nuclear non-proliferation brought about by the JCPOA, by allowing for a continued enforcement of its main elements.”
In Iran, many are deeply concerned about how Mr. Trump’s decision could affect the already struggling economy. In Tehran, Mr. Rouhani sought to calm nerves, smiling as he appeared at a petroleum expo. Mr. Trump’s announcement from the White House marked potentially the worst-case scenario for the relative moderate, as the country’s economy continues to reel despite the deal and may further worsen.
The first 15 months of Mr. Trump’s presidency have been filled with many “last chances” for the Iran deal in which he’s punted the decision for another few months, and then another. As he left his announcement Tuesday, he predicted that Iranians would someday “want to make a new and lasting deal” and that “when they do, I am ready, willing and able.”