President Donald Trump is expected to announce within days that he will no longer certify Iran's compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement.By law, the president has until October 15th to decide, but White House sources say it may come sooner.
"The president has reached a decision on an overall Iran strategy and wants to make sure we have a broad policy to deal with that, not just one part of it, to deal with all of the problems of Iran being a bad actor," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday.
Trump tipped his hand last month in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. "The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into."
A decision not to recertify would not void the deal, which Iran reached with the United States and other world powers to suspend its nuclear program. It also does not automatically bring previous sanctions back into force. But many experts believe it could set in motion a process that could snap sanctions back into place and result in undoing the accord.
European leaders, including British Prime Minister Theresa May, have been in touch with Trump in recent days to try to persuade him not to back away from the accord. May called the president Tuesday to "reaffirm the UK's strong commitment to the deal alongside our European partners, saying it was vitally important for regional security," according to a readout issued by the prime minister's office.
A White House statement about the call said the leaders discussed denying Iran "all paths" to a nuclear weapon.
Several experts and former officials have warned that U.S. credibility and trustworthiness are also at stake.