Trump has threatened to blow up the Iran deal — here are his options
While the US president vows that he’s done waiving sanctions, the amount of damage he intends to do — from letting Tehran’s trade partners off the hook to reinstating UN sanctions — remains an open question.
President Donald Trump has made it clear that he’s ready to be done with the much-maligned Iran nuclear deal. What that means, exactly, remains a topic of intense speculation with profound ramifications for the fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Barring an improbable last-minute deal with other JCPOA parties to extend certain nuclear restrictions and punish Iran for its ballistic missile tests, Trump is likely to reinstate a first batch of congressional sanctions lifted under the deal when his waiver authority expires on May 12. The administration would then be required to punish countries that import Iranian oil, while retaining wide latitude on how aggressively it goes after sanctions violators, particularly US allies who remain committed to making the deal work.
