Trump won't make the official announcement until 2 p.m. this afternoon, but the New York Times reported this morning that Trump will announce that he's withdrawing from the deal.
More specifically, Trump reportedly plans to reinstate all sanctions that were lifted as part of the deal and even impose new sanctions on top of that.
The United States is preparing to reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the nuclear accord — and impose additional economic penalties as well, the person said.
A second person familiar with negotiations to keep the 2015 accord in place said the talks collapsed over Mr. Trump’s insistence that sharp limits be kept on Iran’s nuclear fuel production after 2030. The deal currently lifts those limits.
Mr. Trump is planning to formally announce his decision at 2 p.m. on Tuesday at the White House.
Trump reportedly told French President Emmanuel Macron of his plans by phone this morning and someone in either administration relayed the details of their conversation to the Times.
As for what happens next, there are so many daunting implications it's hard to know where to begin.
We're not just breaking promises we made to Iran, we're also breaking promises we made alongside our European allies who also signed on to the Iran nuclear deal. We're betraying the faith they placed in American institutions.
Trump could also be scuttling an opportunity to negotiate a similar nuclear deal with North Korea. What reason would North Korea have to give up the nuclear weapons they've already developed if it's possible Trump will simply reimpose sanctions in the future?
Trump's actions will demonstrate that the United States is not a reliable treaty partner because even if the next president says and does all the right things, it could be just a matter of time before American voters decide they're sick of stability and choose to elect another maniac.
Now, this may be far above my pay grade, but if you look at how things have unfolded in Iran and North Korea, I think you could justifiably conclude that developing nuclear weapons actually is the way to go. Trump has treated the North with far more respect than Iran and, in fact, developing nuclear weapons doesn't seem to have cost the North anything. We've imposed significant sanctions on North Korea, but Trump is going to reimpose sanctions on Iran even though Iran has complied with the terms of our deal.
There's no reason to comply and plenty of reasons not to.