President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron vowed on Tuesday to seek stronger measures to contain Iran.
However, Trump refrained from committing to staying in a 2015 nuclear deal and threatened Tehran with retaliation if it restarts its nuclear program. During a news conference with Macron, Trump reiterated his stance against the nuclear accord between Iran and world powers. The U.S. President also said that the accord does not address Tehran’s rising influence in the Middle East or its ballistic missile program, calling it insane, terrible and ridiculous.
“This is a deal with decayed foundations,” Trump said. “It’s a bad deal. It’s falling down.”
According to Reuters, with a May 12 deadline looming for Trump to decide on restoring U.S. economic sanctions on Tehran, Macron said he spoke to Trump about a “new deal” in which the United States and Europe would tackle the outstanding concerns about Iran beyond its nuclear program.
Macron is on a three-day state visit to the United States in an attempt to preserve the Iran nuclear deal, which west powers see as the best way of stopping Iran from getting a nuclear bomb which will spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Macron’s proposal states that the U.S. and Europe to continue blocking any Iranian nuclear activity until 2025 and beyond, as well as contain Iran’s ballistic missile program and generate conditions for a political solution to contain Iran activity in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.
Meanwhile, there were no signs indicating whether Macron managed to make any progress in his efforts to prevent Trump from pulling out of the 2015 deal. Trump once again stressed out that there would be repercussions should Iran restart its nuclear program.
“If Iran threatens us in any way, they will pay a price like few countries have ever paid,” Trump said, adding that “we will have a great shot at doing a much bigger, ‘maybe deal, maybe not’ deal.
“What was important and new this morning was that President Trump was OK with putting on the table, with France, the idea of a new agreement that should be proposed to, and worked on with, the Iranians,” a French official said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also supposed to make a case for the deal during her visit to the White House on Friday.
Iran warned that if the deal collapses they will speed up their nuclear program. The Iranian Foreign Minister also said that if Trump pulls out of the agreement Tehran might quit the treaty designed to stop their spread of nuclear weapons.
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