President Donald Trump delivered a crushing blow to the six nation Iran nuclear deal that was negotiated by the previous administration of President Obama today.
Mr Trump told his worldwide audience that he would refer the deal to congress and consult with allies on how to alter it. If congress didn’t alter the deal, Mr Trump said he would end it himself.
He accused the Iranian government of sponsoring terrorism whilst vowing at the same time to make sure the regime has no more “paths to a nuclear weapon”.
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en-gb"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">StateDept : .POTUS: The Iranian regime has committed multiple violations of the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JCPOA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JCPOA</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Iran</a> <a href="https://t.co/JyxiYyW9W3">pic.twitter.com/JyxiYyW9W3</a></p>— Rex Tillerson (@Secy_State_US) <a href="https://twitter.com/Secy_State_US/status/918888602490122240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">13 October 2017</a></blockquote>
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Though many of his European allies will certainly criticize him for this move in the coming days, President Trump claimed that Iran had “committed multiple violations of the agreement.”
Mr Trump did leave the door open for not scrapping the whole agreement right now, but instead left it up to Congress on how Iran could change its behaviour if it wants to keep sanctions off.
Over the weekend, we are bound to hear European leaders as President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Theresa May of the UK criticize Mr Trump for his reckless behaviour.
Bear in mind when you hear this criticism that this is because any scrapping of the nuclear deal with Iran goes hand in hand with trade agreements having to being re-negotiated with the Iranians. France has been a busy bee at this point, with carmaker Peugeot, oil company Total, airplane maker Airbus (in a joint deal with the UK) all counting on the agreement being carried out. Also German technology firm Siemens has billion dollar deals riding on this agreement going through.
Iran knows this, and it also knows that the EU will criticize President Trump for taking this stance.
President Trump said: "History has shown that the longer we ignore a threat, the more dangerous that threat becomes," in a clear referral to the North Korean situation.
As from this day, Congress has 2 months 60 days to decide whether to re-impose sanctions that would likely cause Iran to walk away from the deal, or to refer the deal back to Mr Trump who will then terminate it.
No matter what happens, Mr Trump has shown once again that nothing which has been achieved by any previous administration is untouchable to him.
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Trump is absolutely right on this one. Iran launched a ballistic missile just last week.