Trump: 'I have decided' on Iran deal — but won't share yet

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he has made a decision on whether the U.S. will remain party to the Iran nuclear deal. But he wouldn’t reveal the outcome of his deliberations, despite strong signals that he will either quit the deal or ask Congress to decide its fate.

“I have decided,” Trump repeated three times in response to shouted questions from reporters on whether he has made up his mind on what to do about the internationally negotiated 2015 agreement.


Asked what he had decided, the president, who is attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York, smiled and said only that “I’ll let you know what the decision is.” He didn’t specify when.

Although no decision is official absent a statement from Trump, some of his aides have in recent days hinted that the president is unhappy with the status quo. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who in the past has urged Trump to stick with the deal, told reporters this week that Trump did not like the fact that the agreement has provisions that expire starting within a decade.

In addition, Tillerson said, Iran's ballistic missile tests and other non-nuclear military actions in the Middle East, including its support for the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, are undermining the "expectation" that the agreement would contribute to regional stability.

"Regrettably, since the agreement was confirmed we have seen anything but a more peaceful, stable region," Tillerson told reporters Wednesday night. "That's why we talk about Iran defaulting on these expectations because those expectations clearly have not been met."

Tillerson said he knew that Trump had made a decision but declined to say what that decision is, leaving that up to the president.

"He has not shared that with anyone externally," Tillerson said, adding with a chuckle that Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain asked whether the president would share it with her "and he said no."

The nuclear deal was struck by the Obama administration in negotiations with Iran, Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia. It lifted nuclear-related sanctions on Iran in exchange for severe curbs on the Islamist-led country’s nuclear program. But unlike Tillerson's talk of "expectations," the other parties to the deal insist that it was strictly about stopping Iran's nuclear program and nothing more.

The countries involved met on the sidelines of the General Assembly on Wednesday. It was the first time Tillerson and Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, came face to face, and the U.S. diplomat later described it as "a good opportunity to meet and shake hands."

"The tone was very matter-of-fact," Tillerson said. "There was no yelling. We didn't throw shoes at one another."

After the meeting, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, stressed to journalists that all the parties, including the U.S., had agreed that Iran is technically complying with the deal. She said that if the U.S. and Iran wanted to discuss other disputes, including their bilateral relations, she'd be happy to help arrange that, but that the nuclear deal should be left alone.

Mogherini added that the European countries planned to hold up their end of the deal — a tricky promise given that a U.S. re-imposition of sanctions on Iran will probably include penalties on European companies doing business there. "The agreement is being implemented. It's working. It's delivering," Mogherini said.

Trump has long been a critic of the deal. On Tuesday, in a speech before the General Assembly, he dropped his biggest hint yet that he was looking for a way out of it, calling the agreement an “embarrassment.”

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trump could simply quit the deal, reimposing nuclear-related sanctions on Iran. But he’s also mulling another option: refusing to certify to Congress by a mid-October deadline that Iran is complying with the agreement, even though international nuclear inspectors say the country is in compliance.

Such decertification starts a 60-day clock for the Republican-controlled Congress to order a re-imposition of the sanctions, essentially wrecking the agreement.

On Wednesday, seven Democratic senators wrote to top Trump aides, including Tillerson, asking that the administration provide evidence of any violations of the agreement by Iran by Oct. 6, ahead of the certification deadline.

“If you are aware of any information that would suggest that Iran is no longer complying” with the deal, the senators wrote, “or that would lead the president to conclude that the continued suspension of sanctions is no longer in the vital national security interests of the United States, we request that you provide a written report containing such information.”

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who initially opposed the deal, also said Wednesday that he didn’t want Trump to quit it. Instead, he said, Trump should look at ways to negotiate with the Iranians on other issues in a separate fashion.

“Most of the complaints about Iran don’t have anything to do with the agreement. They complain about ballistic missiles and other things, but that’s not part of the agreement,” Paul told POLITICO. “I think while the agreement’s not perfect, my main concern has always been compliance. But if they’re complying with it, I think we should stay in it.”

European and other leaders have spent much of this week at the U.N. publicly and privately trying to persuade Trump not to back away from the deal. They fear that even a decertification will eventually lead to the agreement’s collapse; they also worry taht abandoning the Iran deal will make it even harder for the world to persuade North Korea to relinquish its nuclear arms.

But should Trump decide to decertify or walk away from the deal, he has allies. They include Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who used his General Assembly speech Tuesday to urge Trump to “fix it or nix it.”

Some Arab allies of the United States are also signaling that they would back Trump no matter what he does. Pressed Wednesday on the possibility that Trump would quit or decertify the deal, a senior Gulf Arab state official said:, “We can live with that.”

Israel and Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are deeply alarmed by Iran’s military activities throughout the Middle East. Because the nuclear deal has provisions that expire starting within a decade, they fear that Iran will eventually emerge from the deal economically stronger, militarily more adventurous and determined to build a nuclear bomb.

The deal’s critics hope that by threatening to leave or decertify it, Trump will increase pressure on Iran to come back to the negotiating a table and strike a new agreement that lasts forever and possibly deals with non-nuclear matters, such as its ballistic missile program.

In his address to the General Assembly, Trump cast the Iranian government as “a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy” that degenerated a wealthy nation with a rich history “into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos.”

“We cannot let a murderous regime continue these destabilizing activities while building dangerous missiles, and we cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program,” the president said.

On Wednesday, in his speech to the world body, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran requested an apology from Trump for the U.S. president’s “extremely offensive” comments.

He also argued that pulling out of the deal would only hurt the United States.

“It will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics,” Rouhani said. “By violating its international commitments, the new U.S. administration only destroys its own credibility and undermines international confidence in negotiating with it. We are unmoved by threats and intimidation.”

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.