Trump: Iran Has No Choice But to Negotiate for a New Deal

The US president says that with his country’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, Iran is no longer the same country it was, and has no choice but to negotiate to reach a real agreement with America.

Donald Trump, the US president, on Thursday, September 6, in a phone conversation with Jewish leaders and rabbis, while defending the cancellation of the nuclear deal known as the JCPOA, and referring to recent protests in various Iranian cities against the dire economic situation, said that Iran is currently “fighting for its own survival.”

He, who was speaking by phone with these individuals on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, continued: “Iran is no longer the country it was before. I imagine that in the not-too-distant future, they will contact us and try to reach an agreement. If we can reach a real agreement, we will do it. If they don’t call, that’s not a problem either. In the end, they will have no other option. Let’s see what happens.”

Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA on May 8 and announced that his country’s sanctions against Iran would be reimposed. The first round of sanctions, which covered industrial and financial sectors, was implemented in mid-August, and the second round of sanctions, which targets Iran’s oil exports, is set to take effect on November 4.

The US president was strongly opposed to the JCPOA from the beginning and repeatedly referred to it as a bad deal. He raised this issue again on Thursday and said that the agreement made Iran “more aggressive.”

Mr. Trump noted in this phone call that the nuclear agreement should have been terminated sooner, but at that time, Rex Tillerson, then US Secretary of State, opposed the cancellation of the JCPOA.

The US president emphasized that this caused him to delay the cancellation of the JCPOA for a while, but ultimately he decided to break the agreement.

Donald Trump dismissed Rex Tillerson from his position in late March and said that he “disagreed with him on some issues.”

At that time, Mr. Trump identified the JCPOA as one of the main points of disagreement with the former US Secretary of State and said: “When you look at the agreement with Iran, in my opinion it’s very bad, but in his opinion (Tillerson’s) there’s no problem. I was looking to cancel the agreement or do something about it, but he thought a bit differently. So we didn’t have a shared way of thinking.”