Oct. 13 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Friday he won’t certify that Iran is complying with the terms of a landmark 2015 nuclear agreement, and instead announced new sanctions against the regime in Tehran.
“I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification,” the president said in a news conference at the White House.
Though he said the United States is not unilaterally withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Trump emphasized concern about Iran’s ability to “sprint” toward nuclear proliferation when certain aspects of the deal “sunset,” or expire. He also cited western powers’ inability to quickly inspect sites in Iran.
The JCPOA was reached in July 2015 between Iran, the United States, the European Union and five other countries, and agrees to lift sanctions against Iran in exchange for Tehran confining its nuclear activities to the laboratory.
“The previous administration lifted the sanctions just before what would have been the total collapse of the Iranian regime,” Trump said, “through the deeply controversial 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
“As I have said many times, the Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”
Under the Iranian Nuclear Agreement Review Act, the U.S. president must certify every 90 days that Tehran is adhering to the JCPOA. Congress passed the review act two months before the nuclear deal was struck, to give U.S. lawmakers some measure of control over the United States’ involvement with the pact.
Under INARA, the president not only must certify Iran’s compliance, but also reaffirm that lifting sanctions is in the best security interests of the United States and is proportionate to the efforts Iran is making to eliminate its nuclear program.
Since Trump will not certify Iran’s compliance, it’s now up to Congress to decide whether the United States will reimpose sanctions on Tehran or abide by the deal. Resuming sanctions would effectively amount to the United States pulling out of the JCPOA — a notion that’s drawn criticism.
Trump said his decision stems from Iran’s support of terror groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as the country’s ballistic missile program.
“Given the regime’s murderous past and present, we should not take lightly its sinister vision for the future. The regime’s two favorite chants are death to America and death to Israel,” Trump said.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly said the nuclear pact was a bad deal and that he would dismiss it once he became president.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, though, said Trump is suggesting another option to Congress.
“Let’s amend INARA to put in place very firm trigger points [and] if Iran crosses any of these trigger points, the sanctions automatically go in place,” Tillerson told reporters Thursday.
The secretary of state said the trigger points would deal specifically with Iran’s nuclear program as well as its ballistic missile program. Trump also wants Congress to address various sunset dates under the JCPOA, in which Iran is allowed to resume certain nuclear activities in the future.
Tillerson said the administration hopes to motivate other signatories to the deal to start negotiations on the sunset dates now.
National security adviser H.R. McMaster said, “we have an opportunity to apply a legislative remedy” to Iran’s “destabilizing behavior” — and that he’s seen a “very positive response” from lawmakers on the president’s proposal.
Tillerson said the administration has met with leadership in Congress — both Republicans and Democrats — about the proposed amendment to INARA. Though approval of the legislation is not a “slam dunk,” he said there was “not an outright rejection” by Democrats.
“This is the pathway we think provides us the best platform from which to attempt to fix this deal,” Tillerson said — adding that although Trump isn’t “particularly optimistic” it will work, he is willing to try to fix the agreement.
Under the new strategy, the Trump administration also seeks an end to Iran’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad‘s atrocities against the Syrian people, hostility against Israel, threats to freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf, cyberattacks against the United States and other countries, and arbitrary detention of U.S. citizens, the White House said.
Trump also called for sanctions on some elements of Iran’s military — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — for “malign activities.” The plan will call on the international community to condemn the IRGC’s “gross violations of human rights,” including the detention of foreign citizens.
“Iran is under the control of a fanatical regime,” Trump said Thursday, “that forced a proud people to submit to its extremist rule.”
“It is time for the entire world to join us in demanding that Iran’s government end its pursuit of death and destruction,” he said in a statement released Thursday.
