United States withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
The United States announced its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the "Iran nuclear deal" or the "Iran deal", on May 8, 2018. The JCPOA is an agreement on Iran's nuclear program reached in July 2015 by Iran, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States—plus Germany) also called E3/EU+3. In a joint statement responding to the U.S. withdrawal, the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom  stated that United Nations Security Council resolution endorsing the nuclear deal remained the "binding international legal framework for the resolution of the dispute". Various countries, international organizations, and U.S. scholars have expressed regret or criticized the withdrawal, while U.S. conservatives, Israel, Saudi Arabia and allies have supported it. The withdrawal caused concerns in Iran due to its impact on the economy. On 17 May 2018 the European Commission announced its intention to implement the blocking statute of 1996 to declare U.S. sanctions against Iran illegal in Europe and ban European citizens and companies from complying with them. The commission also  instructed the European Investment Bank to facilitate European companies' investment in Iran. Background. In July 2015, an agreement was concluded with Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. It provided that Iran's nuclear activities would be limited in exchange for reduced sanctions. According to the JCPOA, every 90 days the President of the United States would certify, among other things, that Iran was adhering to the terms of the agreement. Leading up to the United States' withdrawal, the IAEA asserted that its inspectors had verified that Iran had implemented its nuclear -related commitments since the agreement. Describing the view of the U.S. State Department, assistant secretary for legislative affairs Julia Frifield wrote, "The JCPOA is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document. The JCPOA reflects political commitments between Iran, the P5+1, and the EU." With the conclusion of the agreement, then-candidate Donald Trump made the renegotiation of the JCPOA one of his main foreign affairs campaign promises, saying at a campaign rally that "this deal, if I win, will be a totally different deal." Trump described the Iran deal as a "disaster , the worst deal ever", and so "terrible" that could lead to "a nuclear holocaust". The Trump administration certified in April 2017 and in July 2017 that Iran was complying with the deal. On October 13, 2017, Trump announced that the United States would not make the certification provided for under U.S. domestic law, on the basis that the suspension of sanctions was not "proportionate and appropriate," but stopped short of terminating the deal. International context. The JCPOA ended some of the sanctions on Iran while suspending others, subject to waivers. These include waivers of oil sanctions implemented in January 2012 , which require periodic re-certification. Throughout 2017 Trump contemplated not re-certifying, and thus effectively pulling out of the deal. According to Jarrett Blanc of the Obama administration, since the JCPOA is not a treaty but an agreement between several countries, it has no formal provisions for withdrawal, but a member of the deal could stop complying with its obligations. Following Trump's denial of the deal, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said the JCPOA was a firm decision and that no single country could break it. She proposed a "collective process" to preserve the deal , saying, "This deal is not a bilateral agreement ... The international community, and the European Union with it, has clearly indicated that the deal is, and will, continue to be in place." French President Emmanuel Macron warned Trump not to withdraw from the deal, and told German magazine Der Spiegel that doing so "would open the Pandora's box. There could be war." The "Global Times", a Chinese newspaper, wrote that America's reputation as a major power would be undermined in the eyes of the world if it reneged on a deal simply because of a transition in government. Political  influences and decisions. Some reports suggest that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "Iran Lied" presentation influenced the withdrawal. A little more than a week after Netanyahu's presentation, Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the deal. He announced the withdrawal during a speech at the White House on May 8, 2018, saying, "the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction: that a murderous regime desired only a peaceful nuclear energy program." Trump added that there was "definitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie. Last week, Israel published intelligence documents — long concealed by Iran  — conclusively showing the Iranian regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons." According to Trump's secretary of state Mike Pompeo and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the agency tasked with verifying and monitoring Iran's compliance with the JCPOA, Iran has been in compliance with the JCPOA and there is no evidence otherwise. According to David Makovsky, a Middle East scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Iran was not in compliance, because under the deal's terms Iran was supposed to reveal all of its research into nuclear weapons, and that based on Netanyahu's evidence , “it seems clear that they did not.” Role of George Nader. In March 2018, "The New York Times" reported that George Nader, a lobbyist for the United Arab Emirates, turned Trump's major fundraiser Elliott Broidy "into an instrument of influence at the White House for the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates...High on the agenda of the two men...was pushing the White House to remove Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson", a top defender of the Iran deal in the Trump administration, and "backing confrontational approaches to Iran and Qatar". Mark Dubowitz of the  Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) was critical of the deal, though he later said he wanted to "save" it. A "trove of hacked emails" show that FDD was also funded by George Nader through Elliott Broidy. Role of John Bolton. Unlike FDD and Trump officials such as National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former UN ambassador (and later National Security Advisor) John Bolton campaigned for a complete withdrawal from the JCPOA and rejected the idea that it could be fixed. Unable at the time to present his position to Trump directly, Bolton published  his proposal for how to withdraw from the deal in an August 28, 2017, "National Review" article. After he was named to succeed McMaster as National Security Adviser in April 2018, Bolton pressed Trump to withdraw from the JCPOA, which Trump did a month later. Resignation of the special representative. On August 6, 2020, the State Department's special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, announced his resignation. Many viewed this as a tacit admission that the so-called "maximum pressure" policy toward Iran had failed. Hook resigned just before a U.S.-led U.N. Security Council vote on whether to prolong an  embargo on the sale of weapons to Iran set to expire in October. Most experts believed that Russia and China would veto the extension, allowing Iran to start buying arms again from whomever it likes. The UN security council overwhelmingly rejected the US resolution to extend the embargo, with only two votes in favor and 11 abstentions. Trump said at a news conference, “We’ll be doing a snapback. You’ll be watching it next week”. This referred to the legal claim that the US remains a participant in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal despite having withdrawn from it, a  claim Washington's European allies reject. Announcement. At 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. He called the agreement "a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made" and added, "[i]t didn't bring calm, it didn't bring peace, and it never will." Public opinion in the United States. A majority of Americans said the United States should remain in the JCPOA. According to the CNN poll conducted between May 2, 2018, and May 5, 2018, the strongest proponents of withdrawing from the  deal were Republicans at 51%. According to the Pew Research Center, 53% of the American public and 94% of U.S. scholars in international relations disapproved of Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear weapons agreement. Aftermath. According to Tony Blinken, a former Obama deputy secretary of state who took part in the negotiation of the original deal, the JCPOA's future depends on Iran's willingness to abide by it, and so on the economic benefit the deal will give Iran. The Israeli military put their forces on alert. Israeli citizens living in the Golan Heights were told  to prepare bomb shelters. Trade. Trump also wanted to sanction European companies that trade with Tehran. After the JCPOA was announced, in December 2016, Boeing signed a $17 billion deal with Iran and Airbus signed a $19 billion one. These deals were subsequently canceled. China is involved in a $1.5 billion deal for infrastructure, and its CITIC bank provides $10 billion lines of credit to Iranian banks. Using euros and the yuan, this bank should not be subject to US sanctions against companies that use US dollars. The French company Total S.A. won a project in  the South Pars gas field that could be hit by US sanctions. In anticipation of a possible pull-out by Total, Chinese company CNPC signed a $1 billion deal giving it the option to take over Total's commitments.