U.S. President Donald Trump announced today that he is pulling the U.S. out of the agreement that Iran signed in 2015 with the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China to end Iran’s development of nuclear fuel that could soon be made into nuclear weapons. The result of this agreement engineered by the U.S. President Obama administration, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is that the U.S. and other nations would end their economic and trade sanctions against Iran. Among such efforts, they had frozen Iranian assets in international banks.
Also as part of JCPOA agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency has been monitoring Iran’s compliance with the agreement. The IAEA continually claims that Iran has been fully complying with it. President Trump claims otherwise even though U.S. intelligence agrees with the IAEA. But as usual regarding most allegations Trump makes about anything, he provides no factual details to back up his claim. He only cited in his speech today the presentation Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu made days ago claiming Iran has not been in compliance. But our U.S. intelligence asserts that some of Netanyahu’s evidence he presented was irrelevant because it was what Iran was doing prior to 2015 and thus prior to the agreement. If true, that will just fuel anti-Semitism and cause more criticism of Trump, as if he doesn’t have enough.
Trump’s two main criticisms of this Iran deal is that it provided Iran with some $450+ billion, a figure that has been very debated, and that Iran’s support of Islamic terrorism throughout parts of the Middle East should have been restricted through the agreement.
Trump sometimes shakes things up in order to try to get a better deal. But that can backfire. He has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord because he denies manmade climate change, and if he is wrong, as I think I is, that will prove disastrous for the U.S. He has pulled us out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership; but already he wants the U.S. back in it because it opened the door for China to be the leader of trade in that region, something which he should have foreseen. Now he has pulled us out of our commitment to the JCPOA. And Trump is about to negotiate with North Korea regarding its nuclear weapons arsenal in the wake of pulling out of JCPOA, which latter hurts U.S. credibility in keeping agreements.
Then there is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). For years and during during Trump’s presidential election campaign, he criticized NATO. Part of his criticism of both NATO and the United Nations (UN) has been that the U.S. pays way more than its fair share of dues. Of course, this can be rectified and is.
The end result of these actions and more by U.S. President Donald Trump is that he is hurting U.S. relations with our main allies in the world. Plus, Trump’s overall scheme of Make America Great Again is international isolation. I suspect that these actions by President Trump will relegate the U.S. to a lesser role of leadership in the world that could be permanent. Along with this, Donald Trump is not a credible person regarding his word, and that could hurt the U.S. more than any of these actions he has taken today and in recent months.
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