Trump and Iran nuclear deal

Is To say US President Donald Trump's foreign policy during his second term has been all over the place would be an understatement. His first few weeks in charge have seen him tear up traditional alliances and take U-turns on his own positions, both long-held and new. Moving away from his tariff wars and refusal to assist Ukraine in an actual war, Trump is now claiming that he wants to open nuclear talks with Iran in the hope of ensuring that the Islamic republic never gets a nuclear weapon.

These talks would probably have been unnecessary if Trump, during his first term, had not taken the unprecedented step of withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The deal ensured that Iran would not pursue nuclear weapons for at least 15 years in return for removal of longstanding sanctions on the country and its return into the global financial system. Iran had been adhering to the deal, even giving up some of its highly-enriched nuclear materials; but Trump, who famously does not read his intelligence briefings, chose to rely on the Iran hawks on Fox News and withdrew from the deal, which effectively nullified it. To its credit, Iran reportedly followed the terms of the deal for another year, hoping that the EU and other signatories would either convince the US to come back, or would grant it favourable terms to compensate for its losses. It was only when Trump increased sanctions that the Iranians went back to working on its weapons-grade uranium enrichment.

Whether or not Trump is sincere about renewing a deal that he himself destroyed is also questionable since the last week has seen him get a lot of bad press over his economic policies and disastrous government downsizing campaign. However, if it is not an attempt to "flood the zone" with so much disinformation that his actual actions go unnoticed, the olive branch was still wrapped around a tank, as Trump threatened to go in militarily and "do something", meaning he still hasn't learned how to say the 'quiet part' quietly.