Trump Suggests He Could Pull Out of Iran Deal
President Donald Trump said Monday at the U.N. that he will be making a decision regarding whether to scrap the Iran nuclear deal “very soon.”
Trump’s comments to reporters came as he sat down for a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who strongly opposes the Obama administration-championed international agreement.
According to the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the United States must certify in October whether Iran is in compliance with the deal.
Asked by a reporter whether he plans to keep the U.S. in the agreement, Trump responded, “You’ll see very soon.”
In an address before a joint session of Congress in 2015, Netanyahu contended that the deal “doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb, it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.”
While aboard Air Force One on Thursday, Trump restated his disapproval of the agreement’s terms, a view he expressed multiple times as a presidential candidate.
“But I will say this, the Iran deal is one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen, certainly at a minimum the spirit of the deal is just atrociously kept. But the Iran deal is not a fair deal to this country. It’s a deal that should have never ever been made. And you’ll see what we’re doing in a couple of weeks,” he said of his decision regarding American participation in the agreement.
Trump added that Iran has “violated so many different elements” of the deal and the United States is “not going to stand for what they (Iran) are doing.”
“Every 90 days, the U.S. President must certify to Congress that Iran is keeping up its end of the deal,” CNN reported. “If Iran doesn’t comply, US, European Union, and UN nuclear-related sanctions on the Iranian economy would be reinstated.”
Last fall, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency found that the Islamic Republic produced too much heavy water, a material which is used to cool reactors that produce plutonium.
In February, Iran conducted ballistic missiles tests, which, while they were not in violation of the nuclear deal, did violate a U.N. resolution passed just days after the agreement was signed.
Iran is “called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology,” according to the text of the resolution.
Iran argued that the missiles could not carry nuclear weapons.
After Trump’s Monday comments at the U.N., Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told CNN the U.S. would pay a price if it pulls out of the agreement.
“Exiting such an agreement would carry a high cost for the United States of America, and I do not believe Americans would be willing to pay such a high cost for something that will be useless for them,” he said.
“Given that Mr. Trump’s actions and reactions and policies are somewhat unpredictable, we have thought long and hard about our reactions,” Rouhani added.
He said any response from Iran would come “quite swiftly” and “probably within a week,” adding that “if the US wants to increase the tensions it will see the reaction from Iran.” (For more from the author of “Trump Suggests He Could Pull Out of Iran Deal” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/09/trump-suggests-pull-iran-deal/
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