The US president made the decision to remove the United States from the agreement arguing that Iran is a country that sponsors terrorism

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced on Tuesday, May 8th at a press conference that his country is abandoning the nuclear agreement signed by several international powers with Iran to limit its nuclear program. Trump took the opportunity to say that all the sanctions that existed before the agreement was signed will be valid again, so if any country helps Iran from now on, it could also be sanctioned.

Leer en español: ¿Por qué Donald Trump retira a Estados Unidos del acuerdo nuclear con Irán?

According to Trump, "the agreement was so badly negotiated that even if Iran complies with everything, the regime would be on the verge of getting nuclear weapons in a short period of time." The president affirmed that "we can not avoid an Iranian nuclear bomb under this decadent and deteriorated agreement". Trump began his speech by claiming that Iran is a "sponsor of terrorism" and that it is the duty of the United States to protect its own territory.

For Trump, one of the internal reasons for the Nuclear agreement with Iran also derives from the missile program of the Asian country. Despite the nuclear limitations, this program has become more modern over the years. The missile program is run by the Revolutionary Guard, which has made at least five tests with new missiles since the agreement was signed. Some of the missiles have a range of up to 2,000 km, which means that Israel is within its range of fire. Technically, the missiles developed by Iran have the ability to load nuclear warheads, although Iran has denied that this is its purpose.

World Reactions

Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his support for the US president and said that the agreement with Iran was "a recipe for the disaster that has not served to prevent Iran from taking a nuclear weapon but, on the contrary, to facilitate that it be done with an entire arsenal."

The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, announced in a message on Twitter that his country, Germany and the United Kingdom regret the decision of his US counterpart.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), for its part, said that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, has created an "unnecessary crisis of proliferation" with his decision to abandon the nuclear agreement with Iran. The organization, awarded last year with the Nobel Peace Prize, also warned that this step undermines the "credibility" of the United States and recalled that North Korea "is watching" so it was not a good time to make the decision. The executive director of the ICAN, Beatrice Fihn, said that "Donald Trump created a situation of tension in the region with his decision."

What can you expect now?

Without Washington the agreement loses much of its validity. First, due to the economic component, and above all, financial, since the United States makes it practically impossible to carry out international transactions that do not touch financial institutions with interests or operations in that country. On the other hand, the American power has a strong political and military alliance with the two main enemies of Iran in the Middle East: Israel and Saudi Arabia, which puts the European powers and NATO in a difficult situation.

The original agreement

The agreement signed by Tehran with the group formed by Germany, China, the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Russia establishes limits and controls on the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the pact began to be applied in January 2016.

Latin American Post | Carlos Eduardo Gómez Avella
Translated from "¿Por qué Donald Trump retira a Estados Unidos del acuerdo nuclear con Irán?"