In an interview with FRANCE 24, former US deputy secretary of state William Burns said he is "very much worried" about a potential war breaking out between the US and Iran as tensions mount following Washington's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. Burns said there is a "deep danger" that the deal will collapse altogether as the Trump administration has shown little interest in engaging with Tehran.

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Burns also said he believes strategic competition is the main challenge for US diplomacy in the years to come, arguing that President Donald Trump was right to push back against China’s trade practices but was wrong to do so unilaterally.

He also said that a second Trump term could cause "corrosive damage" to a new international order because of his "unilateral" and "narcissistic" approach, noting that the American leader has a "naïve attachment to autocrats" – a trait that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin sees as a sign of weakness. Burns said Putin is "an apostle of payback" who tried to take revenge in the 2016 election against what he perceived as the US taking advantage of Russia’s difficulties after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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