Donald Trump to announce his decision on future of Iran nuclear deal at 2 p.m Tuesday

David Jackson | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Iran warns Trump: ‘Historic remorse’ if U.S. pulls out of nuclear deal Iranian president warned the US that there would be “historic remorse” if it pulls out of the nuclear deal. Veuer's Maria Mercedes Galuppo has more.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday he will disclose his plans for the future of the Iran nuclear deal at 2 p.m. ET Tuesday, as his hard-line advisers urge him to kill the deal and allies around the world urge him to stay in.

"I will be announcing my decision on the Iran Deal tomorrow from the White House at 2:00 pm," Trump tweeted midday.

Trump's options range from efforts to re-impose sanctions on Tehran to delaying any move on the agreement he has condemned since his first days on the campaign trail in 2015.

The decision comes after months of consultations with a more anti-Iran foreign policy team appointed by Trump.

The president's new secretary of State and his national security adviser, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, are much more anti-agreement than their predecessors, Rex Tillerson and H.R. McMaster, suggesting that Trump is prepared to void it by seeking to reimpose sanctions on Iran.

In the run-up to another certification deadline Saturday, Trump has also been consulting with perhaps the world's most outspoken critic of the Iran nuclear agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"The president will make an announcement on what his decision is soon," said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, declining to offer a preview.

Trump tweeted out his announcement just a minute after Sanders ended her daily briefing, and some 15 minutes before first lady Melania Trump made a high-profile speech on her own "Be Best" agenda.

I will be announcing my decision on the Iran Deal tomorrow from the White House at 2:00pm. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 7, 2018

The Iran decision is not as simple as just terminating the agreement — the president will have to decide whether to reimpose sanctions on Iran and how he might do that. Aides said Trump is also getting a wide range of advice, including from people who advocate staying in the pact. That group includes Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and key foreign allies who also signed the Iran nuclear agreement.

A steady stream of foreign dignitaries — French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson — have visited the United States to lobby Trump to stick with the Iran agreement.

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Sanctions are the key to Trump's decision about the deal brokered by the Barack Obama administration.

Under the agreement signed in 2015, the United States and others withdrew economic sanctions on Iran as the Tehran regime agreed to give up the mechanical means to make nuclear weapons.

Trump, claiming the agreement allows Iran to cheat, has twice refused to re-certify the agreement. But he has held off reimposing sanctions as lawmakers and international partners work on what they called "fixes" to the agreement.

The option is again on the table ahead of Trump's planned deadline.

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A decision on whether to reimpose sanctions is also not as simple as it sounds.

Under the agreement, the United States and partners issued waivers of existing sanctions of Iran; Trump has renewed those waivers even as he has refused to re-certify the agreement overall.

Saturday is the latest deadline to extend the waiver for sanctions on Iran's central bank. Another set of waivers, targeting Iranian individuals and business sectors, is set to expire in July.

Trump may opt to end all the waivers or just some of them; he may also extend some or all.

The impact of reinstituting sanctions is hard to assess. Allies may not follow suit, undercutting the effectiveness of any penalties.

Iran, meanwhile, could also decide to walk away from the agreement and fire up nuclear weapons programs.

Trita Parsi, a supporter of the Iran agreement and author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy, said Trump held off killing the deal in the past in part because of the influence of McMaster, Mattis and Tillerson.

"Well, McMaster and Tillerson are out," Parsi said, "and they were replaced not by neutral voices, but outspoken and hawkish voices."

Parsi said he expects Trump to take steps to kill the deal this time around, but there is a "slight possibility he will punt" because of the pressure from allies and other risks.

Aaron David Miller, a former State Department negotiator for presidents from both parties, said Trump may avoid terminating the Iran agreement because of work on another prospective nuclear deal with North Korea.

Pompeo, the new secretary of State, is also a key figure in talks about ending North Korea's nuclear program, Miller pointed out. Trump may not want to face the fallout from ending the Iran agreement at a time when he is seeking a deal with North Korea.

"I see it as a tactical question only, right now," Miller said.

Pompeo's opposition

After Trump dismissed Tillerson in favor of Pompeo in March, the president cited Iran as a point of dispute with his former secretary of State: “We disagreed on things ... When you look at the Iran deal — I think it’s terrible; I guess he thought it was OK."

Pompeo, as a U.S. House member from Kansas as well as CIA director, has not only described the Iranian nuclear deal as "disastrous," he has called for bringing down the regime in Tehran.

Last month, Pompeo said during a visit to NATO in Brussels that Trump "has been clear — absent a substantial fix, absent overcoming the shortcomings, the flaws of the deal — he is unlikely to stay in that deal past this May."

McMaster criticized the Iran agreement when he worked as Trump's national security adviser, but also worked with lawmakers on potential improvements.

Bolton, a commentator before joining the White House, has called the Iran deal a "strategic debacle."

Nikki Haley, Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, also has seized opportunities to bash the Iran deal, and has been an influential voice in internal discussions.

Mattis has not offered his full analysis of the Iran agreement publicly, but told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that it includes "pretty robust” oversight of Iran's nuclear energy programs.

He also called it an "imperfect" agreement “that can be improved upon.”

Trump also has been getting plenty of advice from overseas. The Iran deal underscored recent visits to the White House by Macron and Merkel.

Johnson, who is visiting the U.S. this week and met Monday with Pompeo, placed an op-ed in The New York Times arguing that Iran has placed two-thirds of its centrifuges in storage and given up about 95% of its uranium stockpile.

Appearing on Fox & Friends — a program that Trump watches — Johnson said Trump has "a legitimate point" about holes in the agreement.

Said Johnson: "We think that what you can do is be tougher on Iran, address the concerns of the president, and not throw the baby out with the bathwater."