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Trump Says He’s Made a Decision on Iran Nuclear Deal Trump Pushes to Reopen Iran Nuclear Deal, and Asks Allies to Help
(about 5 hours later)
President Trump said on Wednesday that he had made a decision on what to do about the nuclear agreement his predecessor negotiated with Iran, but declined to tell reporters what it was. President Trump is seeking to reopen the nuclear agreement with Iran to toughen its provisions rather than scrap it right away as he has threatened, using his visit to the United Nations this week to enlist support from allies to pressure Tehran to return to the negotiating table, administration officials said Wednesday.
“I have decided,” he said, repeating the phrase three times. Pressed by reporters, he added: “I’ll let you know. I’ll let you know.” Mr. Trump, who denounced the agreement in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly this week as an “embarrassment to the United States,” wants to modify it by extending its time frame and imposing new limits on Iran’s development of ballistic missiles. Although European officials strongly back the deal, some signaled openness to negotiating a separate follow-up agreement.
Mr. Trump’s comments, made as he met with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, came the day after he told the United Nations General Assembly that the deal was “an embarrassment for the United States.” The maneuvering suggested a possible path forward for Mr. Trump short of abandoning the accord, but it remains uncertain whether he can reach consensus with the European allies, much less with Russia and China, the deal’s other patrons.
Under United States law, Mr. Trump has until Oct. 15 to certify whether Iran is complying with the agreement, which required it to dismantle much of its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Mr. Trump has already certified Iran’s compliance twice, and Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson acknowledged this week that Iran remains in “technical compliance.” Even if he succeeded, persuading Tehran to reopen talks would be a challenge. President Hassan Rouhani of Iran declared the agreement a “closed issue” on Wednesday, warning that if the United States pulled out, Iran could resume uranium enrichment.
But Mr. Trump has made clear that he is reluctant to certify compliance a third time, citing destabilizing activities by Iran that are not directly covered by the agreement, including its ballistic missile program and support for terrorist groups in the Middle East. If he were to decide against certifying compliance, Congress could reimpose sanctions that were lifted as part of the agreement, which would effectively unravel it. If Congress did not act, the agreement could remain in force. “We see today the Americans are seeking an excuse to break this agreement,” Mr. Rouhani said at a news conference after his own speech to the General Assembly. For that reason, he said, negotiating with “an American government that tramples on a legal agreement would be a waste of time.”
The other five major powers that negotiated the agreement along with President Barack Obama have resisted any effort by Mr. Trump to tear it up. Under the accord, reached in 2015, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Under United States law, Mr. Trump has until Oct. 15 to certify whether Iran is complying, and while he has done so twice since taking office, he has signaled that he will refuse to do so again.
President Emmanuel Macron of France, speaking to reporters outside the United Nations Security Council chambers on Wednesday, declined to say whether Mr. Trump had shared with him his decision on the Iran deal, but said France favored keeping it “because it’s a good one.” That by itself would not abrogate the deal, but would give Congress 60 days to reimpose sanctions on Iran, an action that would mean an end to the agreement, at least for the United States.
Mr. Macron said the agreement should be amended to cover ballistic missiles and extended to last beyond 2025. He also said he favored “an open discussion with Iran about the current situation in the region.” But he added, “I think it would be a mistake just to abandon the nuclear agreement without that.” Mr. Trump may see decertification, or the threat of it, as leverage to press Iran and the other powers to restart talks. He could offer to certify for another 90 days if other parties agreed to explore new negotiations.
Speaking to the General Assembly, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran on Wednesday praised the nuclear deal as a “model,” arguing that the Middle East was safer for it, and said Mr. Trump’s threat “undermines international confidence in negotiating with it.” On Wednesday, he teased reporters who asked him whether he had decided what to do. “I have decided,” he said, repeating the phrase three times. Pressed by reporters, he added: “I’ll let you know. I’ll let you know.”
“Imagine for a moment how the Middle East would have looked had the J.C.P.O.A. not been concluded,” he said, using the initials for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name of the deal. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson seemed to foreshadow the strategy in a television interview on Tuesday. “The president really wants to redo that deal,” he told Fox News. “We do need the support, I think, of our allies, the European allies and others, to make the case as well to Iran that this deal really has to be revisited.”
Two provisions he and others focused on involve the expiration of the agreement and its failure to stop Iran from developing ballistic missiles. Under the deal, sealed in 2015, some provisions expire, or “sunset,” after as little as 10 years while others are in force longer and some are permanent. And although the agreement limits trade involving ballistic missile technology, it does not prohibit Iran from developing such weapons on its own.
“If we’re going to stick with the Iran deal, there has to be changes made to it,” Mr. Tillerson said. “The sunset provision simply is not a sensible way forward. It’s just simply, as I say, kicking the can down the road again for someone in the future to have to deal with.”
The other five major powers that negotiated the agreement along with President Barack Obama — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — have resisted any effort by Mr. Trump to simply tear it up. But President Emmanuel Macron of France opened the door to rethinking its terms on Wednesday, two days after meeting with Mr. Trump.
Speaking to reporters outside the United Nations Security Council chambers, Mr. Macron said France favored keeping the agreement “because it’s a good one,” but would support adding “two to three other pillars,” or provisions. He cited ballistic missiles and the deal’s expiration dates.
Mr. Macron also said he favored “an open discussion with Iran about the current situation in the region.” But he added, “I think it would be a mistake just to abandon the nuclear agreement without that.”
The French position would be to leave the current agreement in place but negotiate a supplemental deal to address concerns Mr. Trump and others have raised, according to a European official.
Such an approach could potentially satisfy Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also met with Mr. Trump this week and later told the United Nations that the deal should be amended or rescinded. “Change it or cancel it,” he said. “Fix it or nix it.”
Mr. Trump met on Wednesday with another key player, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, and aides said he planned to raise his thoughts on renegotiating the Iran deal with her. But it was not clear whether she told him she was open to that. Mr. Tillerson was meeting Wednesday evening with counterparts from the other parties to the agreement, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran.
Speaking to the General Assembly, Mr. Rouhani on Wednesday praised the deal as a “model,” arguing that the Middle East was safer for it. “It will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics,” he said. “The world will have lost a great opportunity.”
The Iranian president sought to flip the script on the Trump administration’s contention that Iran destabilizes the Middle East. He said American taxpayers should ask why billions of dollars spent in the region has not advanced peace, and “has only brought war, misery, poverty” and the “rise of extremism to the region.”The Iranian president sought to flip the script on the Trump administration’s contention that Iran destabilizes the Middle East. He said American taxpayers should ask why billions of dollars spent in the region has not advanced peace, and “has only brought war, misery, poverty” and the “rise of extremism to the region.”
“The ignorant, absurd and hateful rhetoric, filled with ridiculously baseless allegations, that was uttered before this august body yesterday,” Mr. Rouhani said, “was not only unfit to be heard at the United Nations — which was established to promote peace and respect between nations — but indeed contradicted the demands of our nations from this world body to bring governments together to combat war and terror.” “The ignorant, absurd and hateful rhetoric, filled with ridiculously baseless allegations, that was uttered before this august body yesterday,” Mr. Rouhani said, was “unfit to be heard at the United Nations, which was established to promote peace and respect between nations.”
He added: “It will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics. The world will have lost a great opportunity.” At a later news conference, Mr. Rouhani demanded an apology from Mr. Trump and said the nuclear agreement could not be amended, reopened or renegotiated. Given the Trump administration’s open hostility, he said he saw no reason for dialogue. “It is not realistic,” he said.
Nikki R. Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said on Wednesday that Mr. Trump’s speech to the General Assembly should not be interpreted as a “clear signal he plans to withdraw” from the deal, but that it showed that he was “clearly not happy” with it. Mr. Rouhani also said that the Iranians were exploring “our options” should the agreement unravel, and that one “may be to start enrichment” of uranium. But he also repeated Iran’s oft-stated position that it regards nuclear weapons as illegal and against Islamic law.
In an interview with CBS News, Ms. Haley said that given Iran’s other activities, the United States was not safer because of the deal, and that Mr. Rouhani should do more to curb Tehran’s behavior. American officials said Mr. Trump and the European leaders could come to a common position on restarting negotiations, but the difference was that if they failed, the Europeans would still favor keeping the original agreement while the president would be more inclined to abandon it.
“I think what he needs to do is instead of focusing on us leaving the agreement, he needs to start following the rules,” she said. “He’s got to stop smuggling arms, he’s got to stop all of the meddling they’re doing over the Middle East, stop the ballistic missile testing. He is not keeping his end of the deal, and what he’s trying to do is put it on us. But we have to keep it on him.” If negotiations were to reopen in some form, the challenge for Mr. Trump would be to persuade Iran to make further concessions. The sanctions that forced Iran to the table under Mr. Obama have been lifted, so Mr. Trump would have less leverage. And it is not clear what if anything he would be willing to offer to strike a deal.
Other Trump advisers sent mixed signals about whether Mr. Trump would pull out of the agreement or seek to revise it. Secretary of State Tillerson suggested that Mr. Trump might try to renegotiate. “If there are concerns that the administration has, they certainly can suggest an additional negotiation leaving the deal intact and implemented,” Wendy R. Sherman, a former under secretary of state, who negotiated the nuclear accord for Mr. Obama, said in an interview. “But that would also require the United States government to be ready to put something on the table. If the administration is looking for more, they will also have to give more.”
“The president really wants to redo that deal,” he told Fox News on Tuesday. “We do need the support, I think, of our allies, the European allies and others, to make the case as well to Iran that this deal really has to be revisited.” Representative Ed Royce, the California Republican who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, made a similar point. Once sanctions were lifted, he noted, Iran recovered funds that had been frozen in the West, eliminating that leverage.
He focused on the provision that allows the deal to expire in a decade. “If we’re going to stick with the Iran deal, there has to be changes made to it,” Mr. Tillerson said. “The sunset provision simply is not a sensible way forward. It’s just simply, as I say, kicking the can down the road again for someone in the future to have to deal with.” “They now have this money,” Mr. Royce said on CNN on Tuesday. “And so in a way, the toothpaste is out of the tube.”
Representative Ed Royce of California, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested it would be better to make the agreement work rather than pull out altogether. “I think we should enforce the hell out of the agreement and thereby force compliance on the part of Iran,” Mr. Royce said on CNN on Tuesday. He suggested it would be better to make the agreement work rather than pull out altogether. “I think we should enforce the hell out of the agreement,” he said, “and thereby force compliance on the part of Iran.”
He noted that once sanctions were lifted, Iran recovered funds that had been frozen in the West, so pulling out now would not recover lost leverage. “They now have this money,” Mr. Royce said. “And so in a way, the toothpaste is out of the tube.”
But Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a frequent outside adviser to Mr. Trump, said he expected the president to pull out of the Iran deal.
“I am just telling you that I know the guy for the last 15 years,” he said, “and if I had to guess, that’s my guess of what’s going to happen, because of what I’ve heard him say during the campaign and what I think he believes philosophically, which is a bad deal is worse than no deal.” Mr. Christie made his comments at a conference hosted by United Against Nuclear Iran, an advocacy group, according to the Jewish Insider newsletter.