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Trump to stay in Iran nuclear deal, asks Congress to revise enforcement
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump will not withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, but he will decertify that Iran is meeting the terms of a separate U.S. law directing the country to forgo its nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said.
“The intent is that we will stay in JCPOA – but the president is going to decertify under INARA,” Tillerson said in a phone call in advance of the announcement.
Tillerson was referring first to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an multinational agreement reached in July 2015 directing that Iran’s nuclear energy program would be for peaceful purposes only. As a candidate and as president, Trump has repeatedly argued that the deal was too weak and would be replaced.
The second agreement is the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which Congress passed in May 2015 to provide oversight of the Iran nuclear deal. It requires the president to certify every 90 days that Iran is in compliance with the JCPOA.
Trump has previously certified that Iran was in technical compliance, but remained unsatisfied with the JCPOA’s limited scope and terms of sanctions relief, Tillerson said.
In the last several months, leadership from the State Department, Treasury, intelligence agencies and defense have worked on an alternative approach, Tillerson said. Under Trump’s proposal, he plans to decertify that Iran has met the terms set for sanctions relief, which will then spur three possible outcomes.
First, Congress could choose not to act on the decertification, in which case the JCPOA remains unaffected. It could choose to levy sanctions against Iran – which would void the JCPOA. Third, Tillerson said, the president’s preferred option is for Congress to amend INARA to have it address a more comprehensive approach to Iran – including adding what he called “triggers” that would automatically generate sanctions if violated, instead of having to them return to Congress for a vote on sanctions, as they will now.
“The president has come to the conclusion that he cannot certify under INARA that the sanctions relief that was provided is proportionate to the effective benefit that we are seeing,” Tillerson said.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump will not withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, but he will decertify that Iran is meeting the terms of a separate U.S. law directing the country to forgo its nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said.
“The intent is that we will stay in JCPOA – but the president is going to decertify under INARA,” Tillerson said in a phone call in advance of the announcement.
Tillerson was referring first to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an multinational agreement reached in July 2015 directing that Iran’s nuclear energy program would be for peaceful purposes only. As a candidate and as president, Trump has repeatedly argued that the deal was too weak and would be replaced.
The second agreement is the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which Congress passed in May 2015 to provide oversight of the Iran nuclear deal. It requires the president to certify every 90 days that Iran is in compliance with the JCPOA.
Trump has previously certified that Iran was in technical compliance, but remained unsatisfied with the JCPOA’s limited scope and terms of sanctions relief, Tillerson said.
In the last several months, leadership from the State Department, Treasury, intelligence agencies and defense have worked on an alternative approach, Tillerson said. Under Trump’s proposal, he plans to decertify that Iran has met the terms set for sanctions relief, which will then spur three possible outcomes.
First, Congress could choose not to act on the decertification, in which case the JCPOA remains unaffected. It could choose to levy sanctions against Iran – which would void the JCPOA. Third, Tillerson said, the president’s preferred option is for Congress to amend INARA to have it address a more comprehensive approach to Iran – including adding what he called “triggers” that would automatically generate sanctions if violated, instead of having to them return to Congress for a vote on sanctions, as they will now.
“The president has come to the conclusion that he cannot certify under INARA that the sanctions relief that was provided is proportionate to the effective benefit that we are seeing,” Tillerson said.
