WASHINGTON — President Trump said Tuesday that he is pulling the United States out of the landmark agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons program, leaving European allies to try to salvage the deal and shaking up international efforts to bring stability to the Middle East.
Under Trump’s order, the United States will immediately restore tough economic sanctions on Iran.
The moves are seen by foreign policy specialists as isolating the United States from its allies who remain in the nuclear pact, and stoking fears that the pullout could put Iran back on course to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran said after Trump’s announcement that it would begin talks with European leaders while also taking preliminary steps toward resuming uranium enrichment.
“This was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” Trump, in announcing perhaps his most consequential decision since taking office, said from the Diplomatic Room at the White House. “It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.’’
The announcement was in keeping with Trump’s campaign promises to terminate US participation in the deal, which backers admitted was not perfect but which they said offered the best hope of at least delaying Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Trump has long called the agreement weak and ineffective because it did not constrain Iran’s support for terrorists or its ballistic weapons programs.
“It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement,” he added. “The Iran deal is defective at its core.”
Trump’s decision undermines a major initiative of former secretary of state John Kerry, who was the driving force behind the Obama administration’s deal and who has met with foreign leaders in recent months to try and preserve it.
Kerry criticized Trump’s decision and expressed hope that Europe will lead where the United States won’t.
“Instead of building on unprecedented nonproliferation verification measures, this decision risks throwing them away and dragging the world back to the brink we faced a few years ago,” Kerry said in a statement. “The extent of the damage will depend on what Europe can do to hold the nuclear agreement together, and it will depend on Iran’s reaction. America should never have to outsource those stakes to any other country.”
Former president Barack Obama, who has largely refrained from commenting on his successor’s decisions, released a lengthy statement calling Trump’s announcement “misguided” and a “serious mistake” that will erode American credibility on the global stage.
“In a democracy, there will always be changes in policies and priorities from one Administration to the next,” he said. “But the consistent flouting of agreements that our country is a party to risks eroding America’s credibility, and puts us at odds with the world’s major powers.”
The decision follows a furious lobbying effort from European allies urging Trump to remain a part of the deal. Coming a year after Trump also withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accords, it will raise inevitable questions, critics say, about any commitments made by the United States — even as the administration enters new negotiations to halt North Korea’s nuclear program.
Trump announced on Tuesday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would be landing in North Korea to negotiate with Kim Jong Un.
Trump said that he was “ready, willing, and able” to negotiate a new deal with Iran, which the United States lists as a state sponsor of terrorism.
“Great things can happen for Iran,” he said. “And great things can happen for the peace and stability that we all want in the Middle East.”
But many in the international community saw Trump’s move as eroding a key avenue of stability. Leaders from the United States’ top allies — Britain, Germany, and France — issued a joint statement expressing “regret and concern” over Trump’s decision and urging Iran “to show restraint in response to the decision by the US.”
“France, Germany, and the UK regret the U.S. decision to leave the JCPOA,” French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently pleaded with Trump to remain in the deal, wrote on Twitter. “The nuclear non-proliferation regime is at stake.”
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, in an address shortly after Trump spoke, said that the deal could still survive, and that negotiations would begin with Europe. But in the meantime, he was ordering the country’s atomic energy agency to prepare to start enriching uranium.
“This is a psychological war — we won’t allow Trump to win,” Rouhani said. “I’m happy that the pesky being has left” the agreement.
“We had already come to the conclusion that Trump will not abide by international commitments,” he added.
The pact was reached in 2015, when the United States and five other world powers — Britain, China, Germany, France, and Russia — agreed to lift crippling economic sanctions on Iran.
The deal was aimed at reshaping the relationship with an avowed American adversary and pushing off any efforts the country had at obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Under the terms, Iran had to agree to reduce its stockpiles of uranium and allow more intrusive inspections that would enable the world to better detect any efforts to build a bomb. International inspectors were also given access to military sites if needed.
Most of the terms would last 15 years — a timeframe that Trump argues is not nearly long enough.
The sanctions relief pumped tens of billions of dollars into the Iranian economy. American sanctions dating back to the 1979 Iranian revolution, when American diplomats were taken hostage in Tehran, were removed. One of the biggest boons for Iran was allowing the country to further open its oil-rich country to the international market.
Foreign accounts were unfrozen, and the lifting of sanctions against Iranian banks allowed the country’s financial system to tap into the global markets.
Iran remained on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and sanctions related to its support for terrorism and human rights violations remained in place.
Now, the United States is immediately imposing sanctions on Iran that had been lifted as a result of the deal. Those sanctions will block any new business contracts with Iran, while existing contracts will have to be wound down within 90 or 180 days.
The Iran deal was initially unpopular — and was never ratified by Congress, which would have made it harder for Trump to leave the deal — but over time it has gained support, according to public polling. A CNN poll released on Tuesday found that 63 percent of Americans believe the United States should remain in the agreement, while 29 percent said it should withdraw.
Several times since taking office, Trump has agreed to extend the agreement’s relief of sanctions. But in recent weeks, he has appointed new top officials — including Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton — who have been adamantly opposed to the deal.
“We’re out of the deal,” Bolton told reporters during a briefing. “We’re out of the deal.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been one of the most ardent opponents of the deal, praised Trump for his “courageous leadership.”
“The deal didn’t push war further away, it actually brought it closer,” he said. “The deal didn’t reduce Iran’s aggression, it dramatically increased it, and we see this across the entire Middle East.”
Republicans largely hailed Trump’s decision, calling the Obama-era agreement “deeply flawed” as they expressed confidence that Trump could help negotiate a new deal, and, in the absence of one, prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But Democrats — even those who were initially skeptical of the Iran deal — criticized Trump for getting out of a deal that they viewed as successfully curbing any nuclear ambitions.
“I’d rather the United States — together with our allies — counter Iran’s bad behavior with the nuclear deal than without it,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement. “. . . This isn’t a strategy. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
Senator Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the deal should have been improved upon, not scrapped.
“You don’t burn down the house to remodel the kitchen,” he said. “Instead of committing to an agreement that strengthened America’s position against Iran, President Trump just threw away a deal that was our road map forward toward engagement and peace and have again turned toward confrontation and war.”
Matt Viser can be reached at matt.viser@globe.com.Bagikan Berita Ini
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