President Donald Trump is expected to announce on Friday that he will not certify Iran’s compliance with the so-called Iran nuclear deal but won’t go as far to say that the United States is withdrawing from it, according to numerous reports.
During a speech on Friday, Trump is expected to deliver remarks on Iran–including what he perceives as non-nuclear infractions, including its reported support of Syrian President Bashar Assad and other groups, according to the Associated Press.
Trump needs to certify that Iran is complying with the deal, which was negotiated under former President Barack Obama’s administration in 2015, by Sunday. The news agency says Trump is expected to say Iran is following the deal but that it is “fatally flawed” and the country’s non-nuclear activities “violate the spirit of the regional stability” the deal was intended to create.
As Axios points out, Trump will leave a majority of the pressure to move forward on Congress. Congress could do nothing, leaving everything in place as-is; push sanctions back onto Iran; or work to “fix” the deal, as Trump is likely to suggest.
Trump reportedly does not like having to re-certify Iran’s compliance with the deal every 90 days, as required by law, because it forces him to take a stance on an issue he has railed against several times on the campaign trail, sources told the Associated Press.
Last month, Trump spoke before the United Nations and called the deal “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions” the United States had entered into.
Trump is expected to make remarks about the Iran Deal at 12:45ET on Friday. A live stream of the remarks can be seen here.
