President Donald Trump will announce on Tuesday his final decision regarding the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, threatening a global crisis if he decides to pull out of it.
The upcoming decision will provide Trump with an opportunity to cement his “America First” philosophy, even though it also risks bringing about unknowable consequences, which in a worst-case scenario could lead to war with Iran.
As the May 12 deadline is approaching, Trump is faced with a choice to either fulfill his campaign promise or waive sanctions on Tehran in accordance with European allies’ wishes, CNN writes. Yet another possibility is to continue waiving sanctions against Iran, but stop short of imposing new punishments immediately.
This would leave space for America’s European allies to try to come up with a deal that would keep President Trump on board.
However, considering his discontent with the pact, few believe he will stay in it.
“It’s pretty obvious to me that unless something changes in the next few days, I believe the President will not waive the sanctions. And that will have various consequences that I think we have yet to fully to understand and spell out,” CNN’s Jim Sciutto quoted a European diplomat as saying.
Trump has been tweeting for days, hinting at his possible decision. In a Monday tweet, he criticized former secretary of state John Kerry, saying “he was the one that created this MESS in the first place” and the U.S. didn’t need his opinion on the “very badly negotiated” deal.
Trump regularly criticizes the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the nuclear pact is known, pointing to the billions of dollars in unfrozen Iranian assets and funds held in escrow that were returned to the Islamic Republic after the deal was agreed in 2015. He also complains that the deal does not halt Tehran’s missile tests or power moves in the Middle East.
The President’s impending decision, some say, may encourage Iran to start to enrich nuclear fuel again, causing European states to impose restrictions of their own and thus precipitate a major international crisis.
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