WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump committed on Sunday to enforcing the Iranian nuclear deal, despite his campaign pledge to dismantle the landmark accord that he has repeatedly called “disastrous” and “one of the dumbest deals” he’s ever seen.
In a phone call with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abd Al-Aziz Al Saud, the president pledged to “rigorously enforc[e] the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” referring to the deal’s formal name, according to a White House readout of the conversation.
As a candidate, Trump often sent mixed signals about how he would handle the Iranian nuclear threat if he was elected. In his address at last year’s AIPAC Policy Conference, he vowed both to rip up the pact and enforce it.
“My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran,” Trump said at the conference in March 2016, calling the controversial agreement signed between the P5+1 world powers and Tehran “catastrophic for America, for Israel and for the whole of the Middle East.” Later in the speech he called to “at the very least” implement the deal that lifted international sanctions on Iran in exchange for it curbing its nuclear program.
Since Trump’s election in November, his advisers have signaled that he would not unilaterally walk away from the agreement unless Tehran violated its terms. READ MORE
