In what marked the most significant foreign policy move of his presidency, US President Donald Trump has announced the pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal saying he will reinstate economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
“If I allowed this deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, ” Trump said .
“The deal lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran, in exchange for very weak limits on the regime’s nuclear activities,” Trump said, adding that t he deal “should have never been made.
“It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement,” Trump said from the White House Diplomatic Room. “The Iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing we know exactly what will happen.”
“Today, we have definitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie. Last week, Israel published intelligence documents long concealed by Iran conclusively showing the Iranian regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons,” Trump noted.
In announcing his decision, Trump said he would initiate new sanctions on the regime, crippling the agreement negotiated by his predecessor. Trump said any country that helps Iran obtain nuclear weapons would also be “strongly sanctioned.”
Trump added, “In the meantime, powerful sanction also go into full effect. If the regime continues its nuclear aspirations, it will have bigger problems than it has ever had before.”
“This was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” the President said. “It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.”
“The Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of terror. It exports dangerous missiles fuels conflicts across the Middle East, and supports terrorists’ proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban and al-Qaida. They have murdered hundreds of American service members and kidnapped and tortured American citizens,” Trump said.
Ecobank Energy Report expects crude oil price volatility to surge during the week.
“The higher price is likely to trigger profit taking by speculators including hedge funds that has taken a bet on the US decision resulting in higher crude price,” Ecobank Energy report said on May 8.
“With our expectation of US government failing to recertify the deal in mind, we expect price to trade within $72 to $80 range during the week,”Ecobank Energy report.
Ahead of Trumps announcement senior UK diplomats said they are deeply pessimistic that Donald Trump will stick with the Iran nuclear deal when he makes an announcement at the White House.
Trump who is also now surrounded by opponents of the 2015 deal; including John Bolton, his new national security adviser, and Mike Pompeo, the new US secretary of state has been a vocal opponent of the nuclear deal, a policy stance that has been praised by Israel but met with disapproval among Washington’s European allies.
In recent weeks a succession of European leaders including president of France Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Angela Merkel and British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson had flown to Washington warning that tearing up the deal with no substitute strategy to contain Iran’s nuclear programme risks undermining diplomacy and strengthening hardliners in Tehran.
Before his elections, Trump promised to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran, although analysts believed he might instead adopt a more rigorous implementation of the agreement and tighten sanctions already in place. This could force Tehran to violate first or make the deal redundant.
In January, he reluctantly waived a raft of sanctions against Iran as required by Congress every 120 days, but said “this is a last chance” and asked “European countries to join with the United States in fixing significant flaws in the deal”.
In Vienna 2015 after nearly two years of intensive talks, Iran and a six-nation negotiating group reached a landmark agreement in July 2015 known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which imposes strict restrictions on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, in exchange for sanctions relief.
Under the deal which was signed by five permanent UN Security Council members (Russia, China, the US, UK, France) and Germany allows Iran unplugged two-thirds of its centrifuges, shipped out 98 percent of its enriched uranium and filled its plutonium production reactor with concrete.
Tehran also accepted extensive monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has verified 10 times since the agreement, and as recently as February, that Tehran has complied with its terms. In return, all nuclear-related sanctions were lifted in January 2016, reconnecting Iran to global markets.
Tehran said on Tuesday that its response to Trump’s announcement will be dictated by what would best safeguard its own national interests.
“Iran is monitoring US and European stance closely, and will react to U.S. decision based on its own national interests,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said after a meeting with envoys from France, Britain, Germany and the European Union in Brussels as quoted by Iranian media.
Iran is Organisation Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)’s third-largest oil producer and currently exports about 2.5 million barrels a day. Renewed sanctions would likely crimp those shipments at a time when global oil supply and demand have essentially balanced out. That increases the risk that the market could swing into undersupply and send oil prices higher.
International benchmark Brent crude fell 2.5 percent, to $74.22 on Tuesday after hitting $76.34 on Monday, its best level since November 27, 2014.
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